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I want to invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to John chapter 3. Back in the mid-seventies, a phrase was coined which spread throughout the western world, particularly in the United States, and it began being widely used, particularly in the south.
The person who said it was President Jimmy Carter. And the phrase was, he was asked if he was a Christian, and Jimmy Carter said, I am a born-again Christian. And he made that phrase very popular by identifying himself as a born-again Christian.
Well, beloved, as much as I appreciate the zeal with which he was proclaiming his faith, I want to say this morning that such a phrase is an exercise in redundancy. Because if you are born-again, then you are by nature a Christian.
And if you are not born-again, then you are not. To call yourself a born-again Christian is simply to say the same thing twice. It is like saying, I am a Christian, Christian. This morning we are going to look at that phrase, born-again, and we are going to ask the question, why must we be born-again?
Let's stand together. We are going to read John chapter 1, and we are going to begin with verse 1 and stop just short of that famous passage which we all know, which is John 3 .16. We are going to read verses 1 through 15 together.
Now, there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, 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.
Jesus answered him, Nicodemus said to him, Jesus answered, So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Nicodemus said to him, Jesus answered him, Our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.
Father God, as we seek to examine this important section of Scripture, we pray, O Lord, first and foremost, that you would keep me from error. As the instructor of the mouthpiece, Lord, for the instructor is the Holy Spirit.
And I pray, O God, that you would open the heart of the people to understand your Word. And I pray that this time of study would be fruitful. And Lord God, that you would use this as an opportunity for conviction of souls, to remind people to truly have a time of self-reflection, and ask ourselves that important question, have we been born again?
Lord, we ask this in Jesus' name and for His sake. Amen. This is one of the more interesting scenes in the Bible. You have a man who is coming to Jesus to inquire of Him at a time when it wasn't necessarily popular to inquire of someone.
He comes to Him in the evening. It says here in verse 1, Now there was a man of the Pharisees. Now, very quickly, I'm sure that most of you know who the Pharisees are. Just as a reminder, during the time between the writing of the Old Testament and the writing of the New Testament, there was a period called the Intertestamental Period.
It's interesting, if you look in the Old Testament, you'll never see a reference to Pharisees or Sadducees or Herodians or any of those other groups. None of those are even mentioned in the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament, it was by the clan or the family. If you were from the tribe of Benjamin or the tribe of Judah, that was how people were designated. However, during the time between the writing of the Old Testament and the writing of the New Testament, there began to crop up these political viewpoints.
And you had the liberal political viewpoint, the religious liberals who were called the Sadducees. The Sadducees didn't believe in miracles. They didn't believe in angels and demons. They didn't believe in resurrection.
They were kind of like the modern day liberal Christianity, which doesn't believe in miracles, doesn't believe in resurrection, doesn't believe in those types of things. And those were the Sadducees. You had then the opposite of those.
You had the religious conservatives, and that was the Pharisees. The Pharisees were an ultra conservative and ultra rigid group. They had rules for everything. They had interpreted the Old Testament in such a way that they had gone down to the very minutia of life and decided on every aspect of how they were to live in accordance with those Old Testament laws.
They had a certain amount of steps that they could take on the Sabbath. That was a rule. They couldn't take more than that amount of steps or they would be outside of the law of God. That's how they had governed themselves.
So you can see, these are not uneducated people. These are people who have thought very deeply about their religion. They thought very deeply about what it is they believe. This is a group of people that are very serious about their religion.
Now, I'm not saying that they were spiritual. Neither am I saying were they godly. I just said they were serious about their religion. People can be very serious about their religion and not be saved.
I mean, most Muslims are very serious about their religion. Serious enough to die. But it doesn't mean they're godly. It doesn't mean they're righteous. It means they're serious. People are often serious about religion without being very serious about God.
And that's the situation with the Pharisees. They were very serious people. And here comes this man, Nicodemus, to speak to Jesus and he chooses to do so by night. It says, in verse 2, it says, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
The Pharisees were a ruling class. They were a religious power within the Jewish community. And it says, this man came to Jesus by night. There's a lot of speculation as to why he came to Him at this hour.
There seems to be two sides. There are those who sort of support Nicodemus and they say, well, Nicodemus came at night because Jesus was always busy during the day. He always had crowds who were flocking to Him for miracles and were flocking to Him for teaching.
And Pharisees were very heavy thinking people and they had serious questions. So he went to Him at night so that he could have them all to himself and inquire to Him in private. That's those who sort of support Nicodemus.
And there is some reason to support that because we know that later in the story of Jesus's life, Nicodemus is a supporter of Christ. So that's very possible that the reason why he came was legitimately he wanted to have a conversation, be like someone who wanted to have a conversation with their pastor.
Rather than on a Sunday morning when everybody's here, they call for a meeting in the middle of the week when no one's around so that they can have that private opportunity to inquire about something very serious.
So that could very well be. But then there's another possibility in the life of Nicodemus and that is that he feared what his fellow Pharisees would think of him if they knew that he was going to Jesus to inquire of Him, if they knew he was going to Jesus to talk to Him.
And so he went by night so as to be under the cover of darkness and he could go in stealth. He could go and no one would know that he had gone and no one would know that he had returned and he would go in secret.
Well, the text is not clear. It doesn't tell us the motivation behind Nicodemus' night trip. All we know is that he went in the evening and we know that he went to talk to Jesus. When I teach this to kids, I call it Nick at Night.
That's the story. And when he goes to Jesus, he goes with words of flattery, which was common in this time. It's common even today when you're trying to butter someone up, if you will, if you want to have a conversation with someone, you might bring words, flowery words, words of flattery.
And this is what he says. He says in verse 2, This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know... Now, who's we? We could be the Pharisees, as in reference here. It could be believers. Nicodemus could be identifying himself as a believer, but most likely he's saying in reference to the other Pharisees, we know that you are a teacher come from God.
Now, would his fellow Pharisees agree with that statement? Probably not. But I think Nicodemus is somewhat here attempting flattery and making the point that we do know that you're a teacher come from God because no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.
It's obvious that you're from God. It's obvious where you come from. There can be no question that God is with you. And then, of course, Jesus in his typical style. And then Jesus did have a style of teaching.
One of the things Jesus loved to do in his teaching, if you read through the Gospels, you'll see this. Someone will ask him a question and he'll totally say, he'll go a different direction. And it's like, that's not even an answer to the question.
That's not even responding to what's been said. Notice what Jesus says in verse three. Jesus answered him. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Now, think of that.
Nicodemus didn't come up and say, Jesus, how can one be right with God? Jesus, how can somebody know that they have eternal life? Jesus, how can someone be confident in their right relationship with the Almighty?
Nicodemus didn't say that. Nicodemus didn't ask any question, technically. All he said was, we know that you're a teacher come from God because of the miracles that we've seen you do, because of the teachings that you've done.
We know that you are from God. And Jesus immediately, verily, verily, if you're reading King James Version of the Bible, if you're reading the ESV, truly, truly, I think the NAS is probably truly, truly, in Greek it's amen, amen.
That's where we get our English word, amen. It is the truth. Truly, truly, I say to you, it is the truth. Unless, it says here, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
This takes Nicodemus by surprise. Nicodemus' response is one of perplexity. 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? Obviously, Nicodemus, coming from his pharisaical background, was taking this somewhat literally, a bit too literally.
Can a man enter into his mother's womb a second time and be born? And Jesus said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Now, I have to camp here for a minute.
I have to spend some time here. Because this is one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible, I would hasten to say. Because Jesus is effectively saying the same thing he said earlier. He's saying it again.
He's saying it a bit differently. The first time, he says, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And that's an important issue, because sometimes people think that that means physical sight, but the reality is Jesus is talking about seeing it with spiritual eyes.
He can't even really recognize the kingdom of God without being born again. But then he says here, you can't enter into it. So not only can you not recognize it, but you can't enter into it unless you are born again.
But this time he doesn't just say born again, he says born of water and the Spirit. And that phrase, beloved, is the phrase that has caught the attention of so many and created so much confusion, and I would even interject to say has created much bad doctrine.
And the doctrine that has come as a result of that teaching is the doctrine, not only in this verse, but in a few other verses, that are used to teach the doctrine called baptismal regeneration. That sounds like a big phrase, but basically all it means is this.
There are folks who believe that salvation itself, the act of being born again, occurs in the waters of baptism. That is a belief. It is taught in the Churches of Christ movement. It is taught in the Restoration movement.
It is even taught in the Roman Catholic Church. That when you are baptized, the act of baptism causes your regeneration or your being born again. And they call it baptismal regeneration. This is why if you were to go to a Church of Christ and you were in the congregation of the Church of Christ and the pastor preached a sermon and at the end of that sermon you were stirred to come forward and receive Christ, at that very moment they would have for you towels, culottes, and a wet baptistry ready to go.
Because they believe that at that moment baptism must take place because you must solidify your salvation through the action of baptism. And it is called baptismal regeneration. Actually, they call it baptismal remission.
Just so that I am clear, if you ever have a conversation and talk to someone from one of those churches and they say, well, we do not teach one, we teach the other. It is essentially the same thing. That your sins are washed away by the waters of baptism.
Beloved, that is an absolute miscommunication of the truth of this text. That is one way that people have interpreted it, but I do not believe it is the right way. I do not believe it is the appropriate way to say that baptism causes your regeneration.
Baptism is a sign. It is a symbol. God is very much in the business of using symbols to identify realities to us. If you do not believe that that is true, why do you take communion? If you do not believe God is in the business of using symbols to communicate truth to us, why do we gather around the table every Sunday and take the bread and the cup?
Do not we believe as Christians that the bread symbolizes the body of Christ and that the cup symbolizes blood? We do not believe that that is literally the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. We are not transubstantiation believers.
We do not believe that that actually becomes the body of Christ and the blood of Christ. We believe that those emblems are just that. They are emblematic. They are symbolic of the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So as such, so too is the waters of baptism. The waters of baptism are the outward expression of the reality of the heart. And the reality of the heart is that we have been cleansed. We have been washed clean.
Our souls have been redeemed. And we have been washed, not in the waters of baptism, but in the blood of the Lamb. Beloved, I want you to open your, you hold your place in John 3. I want you to turn very quickly back to Ezekiel chapter 36.
Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 25. This is in the midst of the prophecy that God gave through the prophet Ezekiel that there was coming a time where there would be regeneration in the world. There would be this new birth.
And he says in verse 25, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness. And from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Beloved, that is the Old Testament equivalent of being born again. Taking out the heart of stone which is dead and replacing it with a beating fleshly heart.
A heart that beats for God. That is the Old Testament equivalent. And notice what he says. He says I will wash you clean when I put this new heart in you. It is not a physical washing. It is a spiritual washing.
Beloved, that is so important that we understand. Because when we go back to Jesus' words, all Jesus is saying when He says born of water and of the Spirit, is He simply putting into a very shortened paraphrased version the statement which is made by Ezekiel that God is going to wash us and give us a new heart.
That God is going to cleanse us and give us a beating fleshly heart. One that beats for Him. And beloved, there are people who say born of water means baptism. I wholeheartedly disagree. There are others who say born of water means born physically.
Because when you are born physically, the ambionic fluid is watery. And when it breaks, it is water. And they say, well, what is he saying here? Unless you are born physically and born spiritually, you cannot be saved.
And there is a little parallelism there in John that you could use to make that argument. But I think both of those are just well apart from what the reality is. The reality is Jesus is talking about our cleansing that we receive at the new birth.
We are born of spiritual water. We are also born again spiritually. Given a new heart. So when He says unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God, He is talking about our spiritual cleansing and our spiritual rebirth.
And then He goes on in verse 6. Back in John now. He goes on in verse 6. That which is born of flesh is flesh. And that which is born of Spirit is Spirit. That is just a simple paraphrase of Christ. All He is saying there is when you are born of flesh, that is all you are.
You are flesh. When you are born of the flesh, you are born as sons and daughters of Adam. And when you are born as sons and daughters of Adam, all you are is a fleshly being whose spirit is dead. Did you know that?
That before you come to Christ, you have a dead spirit. The Bible says you who are dead in your trespasses and sins, we have a dead spirit. So Jesus is saying this. If you are born of flesh only, then you are going to be flesh only.
But that which is born of Spirit is Spirit. So really we need two births. We need the first birth that brings us into the world, but we need the new birth to bring us into the Kingdom. So that is why we need the new birth.
That is why it is so important. And then He says, do not marvel, verse 7, that I say to you, you must be born again. Do not marvel at this. This should not be a surprise. This should not be something that is a surprise.
Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again. And then in verse 8, He speaks something that I think brings a lot of confusion to people. Because verse 8 sounds somewhat of a riddle. But beloved, we are a sovereign grace family church.
If there is a church in Jacksonville that should understand verse 8, it is us. Because we understand that God is sovereign over everything, even over believers. And what does it say in verse 8? It says in verse 8, the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. What in the world is He talking about? He is talking about this, beloved, the Holy Spirit is the one who gives the new birth. The Holy Spirit is the one who comes upon a person, opens up their heart, and they believe.
Just like when you are out in the field and you feel that gust of wind, you do not know where it came from, you do not know where it is headed, but you feel it when it hits you, right? So too here is this truth.
When the Holy Spirit of God comes upon a person, when the Holy Spirit of God opens up their heart to believe, it is like a gust of wind, it is from nowhere, and when He opens that heart, we believe and we are saved.
And by the way, that occurs to cause regeneration, not a result of regeneration. Oh wait, what am I talking about? That sounds awful confusing. Some people think that you believe to get born again. But the reality is, God gives you new birth, and as a result, you believe.
Right? It says the Spirit blows where He wishes. The Spirit comes upon you, He opens your heart, and what is the result? You believe. The Spirit comes upon you, He gives you a new heart, and what is the result?
You believe. And what is Jesus saying in verse 8? It is the Spirit who moves. It is the Spirit who is sovereign in this situation. It is the Spirit who gives the new birth. And then of course, Nicodemus, in verse 9, he is still confused.
He is still wondering why Jesus has not been impressed with his flowery words. He is still wondering why Jesus is going into all... I mean, I came here to tell you how great you are. But instead, you are hitting me with some of this really profound theology.
And now, he says, how can these things be? Very similar to how Mary answered Gabriel. When I think of this phrase, I think about how... Remember when Gabriel came to Mary, and he says, you know, you are going to be born.
And she says, how can these things be? For I have never known a man. And here is... Nicodemus is just as perplexed as Mary was. Because he has been hit with some of the most profound theology in all of the Bible.
You must be born again. You must be born of water and the Spirit. It must take place. And Nicodemus says, how can these things be? And then Jesus gives him no room. Jesus does not give him an inch. Jesus answered him, are you the teacher of Israel?
And yet, you do not understand these things. You know what? It is sort of a harsh way of answering. But Jesus is not giving him an inch. You are the one. The one of many. He is not the only teacher of Israel, but he is the teacher.
He is the one who people call on. He is the one that people come to. And he sits down, and they stand at his feet, and they learn from him. That is how the rabbis did it in those days. The rabbis sat, and the students would either stand or sit around them.
I do not get to sit when I preach, but they got to sit when they preached at that time. And yet, Jesus is saying to him, you do not understand this most foundational thing. And some people say, well, this is such a new thing.
How could he be expected to understand these things? How could he be expected to know these things? Beloved, turn in your Bible to Jeremiah 31. I want to show you why he should have been expected to know these things.
He is supposed to be a teacher of Israel, right? He is supposed to be one who knows the Bible. The Old Testament was the Testament that he would have known. He should know the Scriptures. He should know the prophets.
And if you go to Jeremiah 31, we have already read Ezekiel, where it talks about taking out the heart of stone and putting in the heart of flesh. He should have known that. But he should know this as well.
Verse 31, Jeremiah 31, verse 31. It should be easy to remember. Put this in your memory bank, because this is easy to remember. 31, 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel.
By the way, who made the new covenant? Jesus. This is the blood of the new covenant. He said those words when he instituted communion. This is the blood of the new covenant. He said, Behold, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.
For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sins no more. This is the prophecy. The prophecy of Jeremiah, that there is coming a time where there will be a new covenant, and when the new covenant comes, God is going to give his people a new heart, a heart that desires to follow him, a heart that understands his word, and a heart that lives for him.
A born-again heart! And Jesus looks at him and says, And you don't know this? You've been teaching this? You are the teacher of Israel, and you don't know this? And he goes on in verse 11. Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony.
And here, it can be the plural you. You not receiving our testimony can be the you all of the Pharisees. You Pharisees do not believe our testimony. They don't speak like us southern people. He might have said, Y 'all don't believe our testimony, but it's...
There's a singular and plural you. If I say, You need to hear me, I'm speaking to all of you, so to hear. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
And here, Jesus is just identifying the unbelief of the Pharisees. Nicodemus here is simply a representative of that group. Later, he will be a believer. Later, he will represent and demonstrate his belief.
But for now, Jesus is equating him with all and saying, Even though I told you these things, you don't believe it. And I can tell you about heavenly things, but you don't even believe me when I tell you earthly things.
You don't even believe me when I tell you that which is simple. Why would I tell you that which is complex? And then he goes on in verse 13. No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.
And by the way, there's so much wrapped up in verse 13, I can't even get into about the Incarnation. But Jesus is saying, I came down from heaven to tell you these things. No one has seen what happened up there except me, and I came down from there.
If we go back to chapter 1 of John, we'll see what he means. We're not going to do it today, but you remember a few weeks ago, I preached on the Incarnation. Jesus is the one come from heaven. Jesus is the one who has lived eternally and came to walk among us.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And that's what he's talking about here. He says, no one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And verse 14, and as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.
Beloved, many of you know that story. Some of you don't. So in a quick moment, let me just take you there, because you've got to know what he's talking about. Turn to Numbers. Numbers 21. Doing a lot of Old Testament stuff today, but it shows us how Jesus is all over this Old Testament.
Numbers 21, look at verse 4. This is during the time of the wilderness wanderings. The people of God are out in the wilderness. They should have already been in the land of Canaan. 11-day journey took 40 years because of what?
Disobedience. It says, from Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses.
Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food. Notice what they said. There's no food, but we loathe this worthless food.
There's no food, but the food God gave us and we don't like it. Insubordinate, unappreciative, childlike behavior. Then the Lord sent fiery serpents, quite possibly the worst judgment ever. By my estimation, couldn't have been anything worse than to send.
And fiery serpents, by the way, is the Old Testament way of saying poisonous snakes. And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. And the people came to Moses, just like children, and said, we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you.
See, now they want out of it. They realize they've made a mistake. They realize they've offended God. They realize they have offended his called man. They've offended the whole system. And God has judged them with, again, in my estimation, could be the worst of all judgments, to send fiery snakes to come and bite them.
And some of them have already died as a result of these bites. And they're begging Moses, pray to the Lord, that he will take away the serpents from us. So Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said to Moses, make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten when he sees it shall live.
So Moses made a bronze serpent. He set it on a pole, and if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live. Strange story. And really, by itself, in the Old Testament, sitting in the Old Testament, it just seems like such an odd thing.
Here people are dying because poison is coursing through their veins, and instead of God giving them an elixir, instead of God giving them a potion or a medicine, God says, tell them to look at the serpent on the stick.
Tell them to turn their face in faith towards the only thing which I have given to provide their healing. Tell them to turn away from the pain and turn to the only thing which I have provided, which will give them satisfaction.
Now that story, by itself, is somewhat peculiar. But when we understand that that was done, that whole event was a type to teach us about what Christ would do, then we understand how it fits into the economy of God.
Because almost 1 ,500 years later, here Jesus is, and He says, just as Moses lifted up that serpent in the wilderness, the serpent will be saved from their poison, so too will I be lifted up. So that everyone who turns their face toward Me in faith will have eternal life.
Beloved, why must we be born again? Because we don't have the poison of snakes coursing through our veins. We have the death of sin. And unless we are born again and turn our face toward Christ and believe on Him in faith, the death we have here will go on into eternity and hell.
But if we are born again, if our face turns from our sin to the One who is on the cross, and we look to His work, and we trust in faith, the Bible says the one who believes in Christ will be saved. Beloved, is that you?
Have you turned your face from your sin and looked to Christ? Do you know that you have been born again? Can you say that you know that your heart of stone has been taken out, it has been replaced with a heart of flesh, and that you desire to follow after Christ?
That when you look at the cross, you don't look at a shameful, offensive thing, but you look at the love of God poured out for you through the sacrifice of His Son. Have you been born again? I pray you have, because you must be born again to see the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our Father and our God, we thank You for this opportunity to be in Your Word. We thank You for this opportunity to be reminded of the salvation that comes in knowing Christ alone. And I pray, Lord, that my words have been used by You to convict hearts and open hearts, and to demonstrate the necessity of the new birth.
And Lord God, if there are those here who You are working on who do not know Christ, I pray, Lord, that You would turn their face, turn them to the cross, have them looking to the cross for salvation, for there is salvation in no other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lord, use this time of invitation now to move hearts, we pray. In Jesus' name, Amen. Beloved, let's stand, and if you need to pray, if you don't know the Lord, come forward, let's pray together.