Born Again

We had a great week at revival didn’t we? I tell you - if you missed it, you missed it. It was awesome. We saw God answer some prayers. We saw people get their heart right and get victory over some things in their life. It was awesome.

And do you what else was awesome about it? Brother Flanders is a smart guy. I caught him reading his greek new testament this week - now, I took a couple of years of greek but I have never taken out my greek new testament to read it and neither have probably 99% of the people I went to school with. He’s a smart guy. He can talk inteligently about just about any issue and he knows his bible - but do you know what you could say about all of the preaching?

It was simple. It was just basic stuff.

How to pray. How to think about lost family. How to be a witness. Simple stuff. Straight from the Bible, not watered down, but simple.

We were actually planning on being away this Sunday. We usually miss one Sunday in February and go and visit my wife’s family in Georgia. We were going to do it today but so many good things happened last week I just wanted to be here today so we put off the whole trip a week.

And I’ve felt led to preach a couple of messages, this morning and tonight, on the very basics. This is Christianity 101.

This morning I want to talk to you about Conversion, or what we Christians often call “getting saved” and to do it I want us to go to the most famous passage in the entire Bible. We are going to read John 3 this morning, verses 1-19.

Let’s read that text and then pray:

”There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God:for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:so is every one that is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

What do we Christians mean when we talk about “getting saved?” Or when we talk about “conversion.” It is absolutely the most important teaching in the whole Bible - it is the difference between heaven and hell - and yet a lot of people who go to church don’t really know this basic thing.

This is a good story to go to for answers because in this story, maybe more than in any other, Jesus himself tells us about what it means to get saved.

So what happens in this story?

Verse 1 says

”There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night.”

There are two characters in this story: Nicodemus and Jesus. Let’s talk about those characters for a second.

We only get 14 words describing Nicodemus. Just one short sentence. But that one short sentence tells us a ton about him.

We know his gender. He was a man. We know his name. Nicodemus. We know his political affiliation. He was a pharisee. We know his status. He was a ruler. We know his ethnicity. He was a jew. That’s just what the passage says on its face. If you know a little bit about the history of the Bible, these fourteen words tell us a lot more.

We know his morality. Because he was a respected Pharisee, he lived by a very strict moral code. He was, at least to the eyes of others, morally impeccable. We know his feelings toward religion. That’s another thing we can figure out because of his status as a ruler of the Pharisees. This man was extremely devout. He knew his Bible front to back. He was a constant synagogue attender. He was religious guy. We can guess at his net worth. People weren’t generally elected to be rulers of the jews unless they had some money in the bank. Nicodemous would have been a pretty wealthy guy. So that’s Nicodemous.

Of course the second participant in this conversation is Jesus. This is pretty early in Jesus ministry at this point, but He’s still an extremely in-demand teacher and preacher. He is a man who is working miracles all over the place. He is a man with a sparkling repuation. His teachings are spreading around palestine.

So, Nicodemous hears about Jesus, and decides to pay Jesus a visit, he wants to have a conversation. He comes to Jesus at night and he comes praising Jesus.

Verse 2 says he came saying to Jesus “Rabbi” - remember, that’s just an old fashioned title for “teacher”. Master or teacher, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no man can do the miracles which thou doest, unless God be with him.

Do you know what that sounds like? It sounds like Nicodemus is buttering Jesus up. Kind of like when my kids come to me and say “Daddy, your the best daddy in the whole world.” and before they can say another word I’m thinking “Ok, kid, what do you want.”

We don’t get to know what Nicodemus wanted. Jesus cut off that part of the conversation. He had much more interesting things to talk about.

Jesus looked at Nicodemus and said

”Verily, verily, I say unto thee,”

That means “truly, truly” Jesus is saying amen to his own sermon before He even talks here.

”Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Here is what Jesus wanted to talk about. He wanted to talk about conversion, that’s what “born again” means. Conversion. He wanted to talk about getting saved. Specifically, He wanted to talk about how Nicodemus’ needed to get saved.

So let’s take the rest of the message this morning and break down what Jesus said to Nicodemus about conversion. I’ll give you four main points this morning. The first thing I want us to look at is…

1. The need for conversion. Jesus said to Nicodemus except a man be born of again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, nobody is going to see that unless they’ve been “born again.”

Now, when we hear the term “Born again” we think immediately about “getting saved” or “being converted” but when Jesus said it to Nicodemus, it probably hit him like a Mac truck. Born again!?

So Nicodemus asks “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?”

And Jesus has an answer:

”Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.”

It’s like Jesus was saying: look Nicodemus, we are talking about something spiritual here. Not a second physical birth, but birth by the Spirit.

And notice, he finishes his statement with: “Ye must be born again”

Ye - Nicodemus - Ye must be born agian.

Now, I want to stop here and sort of pull back, because this tells us a lot about the need for conversion. I mean, if it was a roman that came to Jesus, we wouldn’t think very much about Jesus saying “ye must be born again.” If it was the lady we’ll see in John 4, we’d expect Jesus to say that.

But Nicodemus?

You probably would be hard pressed to find a more moral, upstanding, religious guy than Nicodemus. He was a jew. More than that, he was a Pharisee. Yet Jesus says “ye must be born again.”

So what does that tell us about our own need for conversion? It tells us this:

Religion doesn’t make up for the need for conversion. Nobody can skip conversion because they are in a church house. Morality doesn’t make up for the need for conversion. It doesn’t matter how morally upstanding you are. You must be born again. Family heritage doesn’t make up for the need for conversion. It wasn’t enough to be a jew. It’s not enough to be a part of a Christian home. If ever there was a guy who should have been able to skip being “born again” it was Nicodemus. He seemed to be doing pretty well the first time. But Jesus said “Ye must be born again.”

So what does this mean for us?

Let me tell you - ye must be born again. You aren’t going to get into heaven, you aren’t going to see the kingdom of God, because of your parents. You aren’t going to get to heaven because you are sitting in church. You aren’t going to get into heaven because of your good deeds. You must be born again.

Religion doesn’t save people. Church attendance doesn’t do it. Morality doesn’t do it. Being well off and upstanding won’t cut it. Getting dunked in a baptistry won’t do it. Ye must be born again:

I have a friend who pastors in Ohio who went to Bible college, served as a pastor like ten years and was well looked up to - but he had never been saved!

I don’t care who you are. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care how many church services you’ve sat through. If you’ve never had a true conversion experience, if you have never been saved, heaven will not be your eternal home.

Ye must be born again.

Some day you will stand before a Holy God and have to give an answer - and your morality, your righteousness - God says He views them as filthy rags. The term in the greek language is even more instructive - I’m not going into details but God chose the most disgusting word picture He possibly could to describe our own righteousness. You aren’t getting into heaven on that.

You must be born again. You must get saved. That’s the need for conversion.

Another thing we can learn in this conversation is…

2. The nature of conversion. In other words, what is conversion like?

Jesus said three things to Nicodemus that tell us exactly what being born again, or being converted, is like.

A. First, conversion is spiritual. Nicodemus was thinking of it on purely physcial terms, but Jesus wanted to make it clear that it was a spiritual new birth.

Jesus said ”Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” When a person is born, they have a spirit, but it is dead. When they are converted or born again, they become spiritually alive.

I grew up in church. I started singing in the church choir when I was ten. I was the annoying kid in children’s church that new the answer to every question and won all of the Bible memory games. But I was spiritually dead. The preaching, most of the teaching, it made no sense to me and I had no desire for it. I never prayed unless other people were watching. My mind was overrun with wickedness and selfishness. There was absolutely nothing spiritual going on inside me.

But when I was born again, I had a sudden hunger to pray. Praying became natural. I had a desire and a hunger for the Bible. I actually wanted to hear preaching. To be with God’s people. It was like a spiritual light bulb went on all of a sudden, and I became alive spiritually.

So being born again is spiritual.

B. Second, conversion is radical. Jesus picked the metaphor “born again,” new birth. That’s a pretty radical metaphor. He didn’t pick a metaphor of evolution, something that happens over a long period of time. He didn’t say you must “grow again” like a plant, or be “built again” like a building. Those are gradual things. No, He said “be born again”

Birth happens in an instant, and it creates something brand new. So it is with conversion. It’s instantaneous and radical.

Conversion can turn a godless, hard living, gang leader like my father-in-law into a mild, church loving, clean living, Bible-believing Christian.

Conversion can turn selfish, sharp tongued politicians like William Wilburforce and Charles Colson into mild men devoted to helping others.

Conversion can take a bitter, alcoholic POW like Louis Zamperini and give him the grace to cry over and forgive the men who beat him daily for years.

One of the godliest and kindest pastors I ever knew was Roy Thompson, the late pastor of the Cleveland Baptist Temple in Cleveland, OH. God used that man greatly in a lot of people’s lives all over the world. He had a humble sweetness about him that was evident.

But the first time Roy Thompson went to church - he was literally an alcoholic bum. He was homeless. He only went with his sister because he thought she might give him a meal and maybe some money for booze.

But God got ahold of him - and God changed him!

And you may not have so radical a conversion story, but I guarantee you if you’ve been born again, it was radical in some sense. The Holy Spirit came to live in you. That’s radical. Maybe Jesus was alluding to the book of Ezekiel here, where the wind blew into a valley full of dead man’s bones and they started walking.

That’s what conversion is like, it’s like the wind blowing into the skeleton of our life and making us really alive for the first time.

Have you been saved? Have you been born again?

It would be absolutely terrible if you came to this church week after week, month after month, year after year and you heard Bible teaching and preaching and you never were saved!

Ye must be born again!

One more thing about the nature of conversion in this conversation…

C. Third, conversion is mysterious. Jesus compared conversion to the wind.

Now, in both greek and in hebrew, the word for spirit and the word for wind were interchangeable. So this was a natural illustration here.

Jesus said “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

We can hear the wind, we can feel the wind, but we have no idea where it’s coming from or where it’s going or why it’s doing what it’s doing. Nicodemus, conversion is like that.

There is something mysterious about how conversion works. I mean, it’s not something easy to scientifically observe. It’s not a process that we can easily understand. It’s mysterious, but just like the wind, we know it when we feel it, we know it when we hear it.

Being born again is a radical, mysterious spiritual change that happens in a person.

They become spiritually alive.

2 Corinthians 5:17 describes conversion this way

””Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature:old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

They are assured a place in heaven

When a person is converted, they get to be a part of the kingdom of God. They get more than just new life, they get everlasting life.

All of this begs the question “If being born again is so awesome, and if it’s absolutely necessary to get to heaven, how in the world does a person become born again?”

Let’s look at that with…

3. The getting of conversion. Jesus actually answers this in the rest of the conversation. But I’m going to save that for next Sunday.

Look at the end of John 3. Look at verses 14-15

And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: 15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

Jesus said to Nicodemus - He said “You know that story in the Old Testament, where everyone got bit by these snakes, and they were all dying, and the only way that they could live was by looking at a bronze serpent on a pole?”

Nicodemus - Yes

Jesus said - That’s what getting saved is like. The son of man (Me) is going to be lifted up (on the cross) and whoever believes in me will not perish.

Then Jesus gave us the most famous verse in the Bible - John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Do you want to be born again? You have to believe on Jesus!

Well, how do you do that? Let me close with an illustration.

About seven years ago, I was working as a Christian school teacher. We had recently had our first child, so my wife wasn’t working. We were struggling to get by on my salary alone. The Lord sent us a lot of blessings though, and we made it through that period with more than enough.

Around Christmas time one year, a wealthy man in our church gave each teacher a Christmas card. Inside the Christmas card was a plain Applebee’s business card along with a note that said:

“Take this business card to Applebee’s for a free meal for your family.”

I picked up the business card and looked it over. Nothing on the business card said anything about a free meal. It was just a plain-looking business card from one of the Applebee’s managers with an illegible signature on the back. I remember thinking, “I don’t know about this.”

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/eQ0NxpwS6CjFSGco5vmMsGF2a-dI0ABe7FJ3DvGJDbWXPOVFqO--k0lN8x8QgLatEl3FvSrsi8mSip0OXiwj3jnL1YiphNlcxggnD4Q04qPhWoiwgmSGaefwNE_icNUNdIlAY2S7DsMZLw

But we decided to go anyway. As we ordered our meals (the quesadilla burger is awesome, by the way), I remember thinking, “I sure hope this works, because I don’t know how we are going to pay for this if it doesn’t.”

We ate our meal, and when the waitress brought the bill, I took out that business card and slipped it into the black bill folder. Then I sheepishly told the waitress that I was told to give them this. She gave me a perplexed look and then took the bill and business card to wherever employees talk to their managers. After an awkward few minutes, the manager came to our table, introduced himself, told us there would be no charge for our meal, and asked us if we wanted dessert. Needless to say, I was relieved.

I remember that little episode often, because I think it’s a great illustration of saving faith. We have been amassing a bill. Through our many sins, we have been building up a “judgment bill” with a holy God. Like my wife and me eating in that restaurant, it’s a bill we cannot pay. When we die, we are going to have to face God and be judged for our sins.

And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: (Hebrews 9:27) Unfortunately, the Bible makes it clear that that judgment is eternal death—separation from God—and judgment in the lake of fire.

The good news is we have a wealthy Friend who has paid our bill for us! The Bible says in Romans 6:23:

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

John 3:16 says:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

God loved us so much that He sent His Son Jesus to pay our sin bill for us. Your bill has been paid!

However, much like I had to have enough trust in my wealthy friend to believe that business card would cover my order, we need to have enough trust in God to believe that what Jesus did on the cross nearly 2,000 years ago pays our bill with our heavenly Father. We need to believe on Jesus through faith. This is the only way we are going to pay our sin bill.

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

When Christians talk about “getting saved,” this is what we are talking about: the act of realizing we are sinners with a debt to God we cannot pay, and the act of putting our faith in what Jesus did for us on the cross so long ago.

So I want to close by asking one more time: Have you been born again? Have you been saved? Have you been “converted?” Have you trusted what Jesus did on the cross for your sins.

Are you trying to pay your own bill? You don’t have it. You are going to come up short - you have to trust what Jesus did on the cross for you.

I did that as a fourteen year old boy, I finally came to the point where I was sick of being a hypocrite, sick of living in my sins, and I asked Jesus to save me. I was converted! I was born again! I got saved!

Have you ever done that?