Here is an outline of the message I brought.
I did add and subtract from the sermon as I went but the main gist of the presentation is here.
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Sermon for 16/3/14 at Colonel Light Gardens Church of
Christ
Bible Verse
John 3:1-17
The New Birth
3 There was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by
night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God;
for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless
one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he
enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born
again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the
sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is
everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
10 Jesus answered and said to him, “Are you the teacher of Israel, and do
not know these things? 11 Most assuredly, I say to you, We
speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our
witness. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not
believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No
one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is,
the Son of Man who is in heaven.[a] 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but[b] have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish
but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into
the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
BORN AGAIN
Born again!
What does the Bible say about this?
What does it mean to be born again?
How can I know I have been born again?
As a young man and a boy and teenager growing up I had
some vague ideas about God.
I believed in God and I had tried to read the Bible
and had had a few short years in an
Anglican Sunday school.
I was aware of Jesus and knew He had died on the cross
and rose again and ascended into Heaven.
I did not have enough interest to ponder these things
too deeply or even if they were true.
I just accepted them.
I lost interest in the church at about age 12 as I
thought it was all a bit too sissy.
I didn’t start go to church again until in my 20’s I
started attending with my lovely Christian wife.
These days I am a Christian who will tell you if you
ask that I have been born again.
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know we are going to Heaven.
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know our sins have been forgiven.
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know that God is real and Jesus is our Lord
and Saviour.
We are slowly being transformed by the Holy Spirit.
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know we are already experiencing eternal life
and we don’t need to wait till we die!
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know all these things are part of being born
again.
IF WE ARE BORN AGAIN we can know none of this is any cleverness on our
part it is by the grace of God.
Being born again is what Jesus told Nicodemus if he
wanted to experience and enter into God’s Kingdom.
He said unless you are born again you cannot enter the
kingdom of Heaven.
This is what He told Nicodemus.
3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless
one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he
enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
5 Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of
water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is
spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born
again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the
sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is
everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
9 Nicodemus answered and said to Him, “How can these things be?”
Notice Nicodemus raises a concern in his question of
Jesus in that he mentions his age.
He was a man of mature, perhaps old age.
“How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a
second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Is it true, as some have said that we need to become
Christians when we are young?
That when we get old we are too set in our ways!
That we think it is too late to get into this God
stuff now!
Nicodemus could see
even as an older man he needed to know about his eternal destiny and the
answers were with Jesus.
Probably it was a little bit of pride that caused him
to seek Jesus out at night and maybe for safety.
He was a ruler of the Jews, A Pharisee.
The other Pharisees were already plotting against
Jesus at this time but Nicodemus knew this was no ordinary man.
It may be a little bit of pride that causes our
hackles to rise when we hear for the first time, or many times, that we need to
be born again.
The term “born again” is used time and time again
these days in the media to ridicule Christianity and Christians.
You see until we are Christian we have an inbuilt
desire to be in control of our own destinies.
To be a self made man or woman!
We want to be as someone said “masters of our fate and
captain’s of our soul.”
We also want people to think well of us , not as if we
are some loopy religious person.
We also don’t want to think or admit that we do have
sin in our lives.
Of course if we have been born again that should not
be a problem for us as we have died to self.
That is, if we have been crucified with Christ!
We are told about this in Romans 6
Romans 6 (St
Paul speaking)
New King James Version (NKJV)
Dead to Sin, Alive to God
6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in
sin that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not! How shall we who
died to sin live any longer in it? 3 Or do you not know that as
many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?4 Therefore
we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was
raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in
newness of life.
5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death,
certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing
this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin
might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For
he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing
that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer
has dominion over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He
died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise
you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
Notice
the connection between Baptism and being crucified with Christ.
This
where we can truly say it is no longer I that live but Christ who lives in me.
So what
happens or how do we become born again?
Many
Christians and others have some different answers on this.
Some will
tell you that you ask Jesus into your heart.
Some will
tell you that you have to believe the Bible but work very hard to be a good
person to be justified by God and allowed into Heaven.
Some will
tell you that you need to do all the above and then be baptised in the Holy
Spirit and speak in tongues or you haven’t really arrived.
Some will
say just believe in Jesus.
Some will
say I was christened as a child and that is my passport to Heaven.
Some will
say that Jesus died for everybody and everyone regardless will go to Heaven.
(That’s called Universalism.)
Some will
say God is a God of love and He would never allow anyone to go to Hell.
Some will
say we just keep getting re-incarnated
into other creatures or persons and our good or bad karma determines
what will happen to us.
Some will
says we are all gods.
The
Atheist will tell you we just go 6 feet under and that’s it.
Some will
say you need to give up all you have and follow Jesus.
And the
list goes on and on.
What Nicodemus
was asking Jesus was the most important question that any of us can ask.
He was
asking this question of the Living Son of God.
How can
we enter into God’s Kingdom?
It is a
question we need to get right.
We need
to know the answer.
We run a
terrible risk if we don’t respond to Jesus.
If you
believe the Bible and Jesus then we can know the answer.
When
Jesus speaks of being born of the water and the spirit He is talking about the
enabling power of the Holy Spirit and when he talks about water he is talking
about Baptism.
1 Peter 3: 20-21 --- in the
days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is,
eight souls, were saved through water. 21 There is also an
antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh,
but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, 22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right
hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.
In a
moment I will outline what the Bible teaches about how we can be born again.
Rather
than rely on the opinions of men and women would you not rather rely on what
God’s word says?
At
various points in your Christian walk you can evaluate you standing with God by
checking the scriptures and your response.
None
of these things the scripture tells us
are too difficult or unattainable for us to be born again.
Note that
in our passage Jesus didn’t actually spell it out how Nicodemus could become
born again.
Here is a
check list of the essential steps to be born again.
Note these
things are not based on feelings or some ecstatic experience you may have had.
They are
based on the Word of God only.
In the
early days of Churches of Christ we had a saying where the Bible speaks ,we
speak!
This message is given with that in mind.
So this
is what I believe the Bible tells us we need to know and act on if we are to be
born again.
1.
We are all sinners.. Romans 3:23. 23 for all have sinned
and fall short of the glory of God,
2.
Because we are a sinner we need saving. Romans 6:2323 For the wages of sin is
death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
3.
Jesus and Jesus alone can save us. Acts 4:10-1210 let it be known to
you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man
stands here before you whole. 11 This is the ‘stone which was
rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’[a] 12 Nor
is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved.”
4.
In order for us to be saved by Jesus, we must deliberately and definitely
receive Jesus as our personal saviour. John 1:10-1210 He was in the world,
and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11 He
came to His own,[c] and His own[d] did not receive Him.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to
become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
5.
We receive Jesus as our saviour :
Through Faith,Repentance and Baptism.
1.Through
Faith Acts 16:29-3329 Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down
trembling before Paul and Silas. 30 And he brought them out and
said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?”
31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved,
you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the
Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took
them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And
immediately he and all his family were baptized.
2.We must
repent, Acts 2:3838 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and
let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission
of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit., and in
Acts 17:30-31(Paul
speaking to the Greek Philosophers about their unknown God)30 Truly, these times of
ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because
He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the
Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him
from the dead.”
3.We must
be baptised, Acts 2:3838 Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let
every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.,
We must be buried with Christ in which we die
to our old life and rise to a new life in Christ. Romans 6:3-4 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus
were baptized into His death?4 Therefore we were buried with
Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by
the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Now if
you go through your life and check that all those things are true about
yourself, then you are born again.
I have
this little Bible that Pastor Harold Long gave me when I was baptised.
I was 28
years of age.
The
little certificate in it is dated 26th
May 1974.
I had
gone to the front of the Church in early February that year to signify I wanted
to become a Christian.
I went
through some studies with Pastor Harold Long after that and came to decide I needed to
be Baptised.
I did not fully understand the significance of Baptism in that process at the time.
I can
look at this and know that I can say on that day I was born again.
Ie.
according to the scriptures that on that day I had fulfilled all for me to
actually do to receive God’s Grace of a New Life.
I am still fulfilling those conditions.
Being
Born again! A new beginning!
The Authority
of God’s word says I am.
No matter
what others may say, you have, and are fulfillng your part in being born again
when you go through this checklist and realise that you have done this.
Besides
these verses quoted you will find many others that support what I have been
saying.
We need
to be diligent in checking that we are reading the Bible accurately in these
assessments.
You may
think you have been sprinkled or “baptised” as a child.
That has
been the case with many but many have come to the realisation,myself included, that
this was not a Baptism according to the scriptures.
There can
be no repentance or belief on our part when we are a baby.
Your “God
parents “ while they might fullfill a great role in your life and do the best
they can that you might live a Godly life, they cannot receive Jesus for you.
I have
come to realise also that when we read the scripture that Baptism is much more
than just an outward sign of something happening on the inside.
Folks we
really need to get this right , this question of being born again.
We are
never to old to settle it and not too young if we can understand and make
rational decisions on these things.
Of course
like human birth, our spiritual birth when we are born again, is just the
beginning.
We will
need the right food to grow as a Christian.
We need
to progress beyond a milk diet.
Have you
been born again?
Is God
speaking to you today?
Do you
want to be born again?
Are you
unsure about this?
Even
though it is not recorded I have no doubt that Nicodemus followed through on
Jesus’ teaching.
He
supplied Jesus’ embalming oil and also helped get Him down from the cross.
He would
have become aware of or even present on the day of Pentecost when Peter
preached his amazing sermon as recorded in Acts 2.
If you
wish to indicate that you want to take the first steps to being born again
today please come down to the front and tell me that’s what you want to do as
we sing this last Hymn.
I will
ask you if you believe you are a sinner needing God’s salvation and that you
wish to receive Jesus as your Saviour.
That He
is the Christ ,the Son of the Living God.
I will then
acknowledge this decision you have made before this group of supportive people.
After the service I will discuss with you briefly what the next steps might be.
I know
that it is hard to do that, it took me 3 years sitting in Church listening to
sermons like this one before I could hold out no longer.
Pride
sometimes has a very tight hold on us.
Let us
sing this last Hymn.
It’s
no longer I that liveth but Christ that liveth in me.
Does
He live in you?
Have
you been crucified with Christ?
Have
you been born again?
Do
you want to be?
Is
God speaking to you today?
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