Born Again — Sandeep Poonen

Born Again and the Forgotten Truths of Faith

It's really good to be back here again after a while. All of my family and my brothers send their love and their regards. They're very jealous of me, and I would be jealous of them if they got to visit.

I was jealous last month when Sanjay got to be here. It really is a great joy. We live far away, but our hearts are never far away from you all. You must know that. We think so fondly of you all. We talk about you often, but you're always in our hearts, and we can never forget what was put into us when we were infants growing up into children, into adults even.

So we owe a whole insurmountable gratitude. We were taught by a lot of the brothers and sisters sitting here. So I recently spoke a sermon on standing pure for God on a day of compromise, and as I was preparing that sermon and even as I was speaking that sermon, I had pictures of the drama that was done by this church by a lot of the young brothers at that time when I was still a little child, still in my head even as I was speaking.

That was how the Word of God came alive to me when I was a child was through the older brothers acting it out and showing me what Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, what it meant for them to live pure for God.

So it has been such a great privilege to be able to grow up in a church like this. What a convicting word we heard just now. It just hit me that Samuel, the very first thing that God spoke to him, God spoke to him when he was a little child, I don't know, maybe seven or eight.

The very first word God spoke to him is, Eli is going to be judged because he didn't raise his children right. The very first thing God told Samuel was that when he was a little boy, and we find out that at the end of his life, that's the one thing that Samuel has disobeyed.

God spoke many things through Samuel, but the very first word that God spoke through Samuel, Samuel had forgotten it. I'm sure he could have told the story for many years to all of his disciples, all the people to him, how God spoke to him when he was a little child, but he probably had to have a lot of shame when he said, what did God say to you?

Because he would have said, well, I'm doing the same thing, my children too. So it is a very convicting word that the first words that we have heard, the words that we've heard from the beginning, those truths may be the very truths that we are falling behind in, that we have fallen away from, and we have forgotten the true meaning of it.

I'm sure Samuel had much awe and reverence for God and how to raise up his children when he heard that first verse, first time he heard God's voice. But over the years, I'm sure it got old. He said, I can explain it to other people, I'm not going to need to live it out anymore.

Jesus' Teaching on the New Birth

And I wanted to speak today from the one of the first words almost all of us hear when we come to Christ, and it is a passage in John chapter three. And I think it's also appropriate that we had a couple of children dedicated that Jesus said that there's something brand new that has to happen when we enter the kingdom of God.

And I wanted to talk about what God is showing me about how I might have forgotten some of the things I've heard from the beginning. A lot of you probably have heard these words early on in your Christian life, but being born again.

And I wanted to share with you my thoughts of how God is showing me this and reminding me of the truths that we've heard from the beginning. There was a man, John chapter three, verse one. Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

This man came to him by night and said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. Jesus truly answered and said to him, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born, can he? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

This is what Nicodemus was. Nicodemus was somebody, probably an old man. He had lived for many years, but I realized that there are a few things about Nicodemus that may remind me of me and us of who we think of when we think of when we come to God.

Nicodemus had a lot of good things to say about Jesus. Nicodemus said that Jesus came from God as a teacher and no one could do these signs that you do unless God is with him. What were the signs that Jesus had done?

If you read the previous chapter, at least some of the signs that we know he did, was he turned water into wine and we saw the miraculous power of Jesus and Nicodemus said that was from God. But not only that, Nicodemus also was hurt, if not he was not, he was there too, when he saw in John chapter 2 where Jesus cleaned out the temple.

Nicodemus watched that. And saw Jesus throwing out all these money changers in his own temple where he probably should have done this. Nicodemus should have done it, but he sees this young 30 year old man throwing out the money changers and something in Nicodemus says this man is from God because I too believe in the house of God being a house of prayer.

I don't have the boldness to throw these people out, but Jesus does. He's a man from God. And this is how we can be too. We can be people who are not just people who are Christians who know that Jesus is from God or Jesus is God.

But we can also be able to correctly discern people who come, who are men of God, who say I like that brother, I like listening to that person who preaches the sermon because he preaches truth. He speaks against the money changers in the temple.

He throws them out. He speaks strong words of holiness. This man, I'm going to follow him. I'm going to listen to his sermons every week. I'm going to listen to him and I'm not going to listen to these other guys who are on TV and making money.

No, I'm going to listen to the right people. And all these other people who are doing signs, they're not from God. But this person is doing a few signs. That person is from God. I'm going to listen to him.

And that spirit can come into us too where we also have that. And we can think that we have Jesus and that we are in the kingdom of God because we identify all of these things correctly. We're not listening to the wrong doctrine.

We're not going to the wrong church. We're not doing the wrong kind of things. And we can say these are all signs that I'm in the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus probably came up to Jesus and probably said, Hey, I'm giving you a lot of compliments.

I'm telling you, God is with you. It's very rare when somebody comes up to somebody else and says, God is with you. And especially somebody who's been a religious leader for many years, an 80-year-old man probably telling a 30-year-old man, God is with you.

But Jesus has words for him and had words for me and for us. Jesus was not interested in that. And Jesus' words to me in verse 3 was this. All of those things that you told about me are immaterial. Just because you can identify doctrine correctly is secondary.

Thank you for saying that. Thank you for acknowledging where you are in terms of your understanding of it. But it's secondary. All that you say about the men of God, all of the kind of people, how you say this is right and this is not right.

I'm glad you said that. I'm glad you recognize that. But that's deeply secondary. This is what I get from verse 3 where Jesus is saying, This is what I want to tell you. There's really something that is really true.

Truly, truly, you need to be born again to come into the kingdom of God. It's good that you recognize all these things. It's great that you recognize all of these things. But it's all immaterial if you're outside the kingdom of God.

And Jesus says you have to be born again to enter into the kingdom of God, to see the kingdom of God. And obviously the question is, what does it mean to be born again? And all of us may know this. But even for the children, we may know.

We're not going to be having to end our own life physically and be born again. That's not happening. It's talking about a spiritual transformation. It's a fundamental, a foundational transformation that happens in our spirit.

That should define us. When we are born, we are people. We have certain persons. We have certain identities that are core to who we are. That defines us. Jesus says when you are born again, there must be a brand new thing.

Not that you check off saying you believe in. Not a bunch of ideas that you say, I agree with this. I'm going to do all these practices. Much, much more than that. It has to be a transformation of an identity.

There's an absolutely brand new person that is now there among us. And nobody knows that, maybe, except you yourself. Because I know for myself, when I grew up in the church, I knew how to avoid showing the kind of wrong behavior that I shouldn't show.

And a lot of us who grew up in this church, or a lot of us who have come to this church for a while, know what we ought not to do. That's not a sign of being born again, though. The born again that is true is something that is so fundamental that it defines who we are.

Have you been born again? Have we been born again in which we can say, I have a foundational identity that has changed. Not different practices that have changed. Not different behaviors that have changed.

But I am fundamentally a different person. That is what it means to be born again. I am fundamentally, at the most basic level, at the most deepest level, I am different now. And how is that difference shown?

Being Born of Water Through Union with Christ's Death

I saw what Jesus was saying in John 3, verse 5, as demonstrating what that difference ought to look like. Truly, truly, I say to you in verse 5, this is what Jesus seemed to be explaining it, was that you have to be born of water, and you have to be born of the spirit.

And I want to give you my simple understanding of what I, to me, born of water and born of the spirit looks like. This may have been words that may have been difficult for you to understand. I know it was for me.

But I want you to understand, I want to explain to you how I simply understand what it means to be born of water. And I don't want us to get too carried away with this born again that we've heard it for so many years, that we miss out that it means that we have to be born of something.

When we're born of water, that's why I get the sense that it is an identity thing. That means I came from water. And I came from spirit. And I want to explain what those two things mean, the spiritual sense to be coming from water.

And to be coming from the spirit. That if God looks at my spirit, He sees that my spirit has been born of water and of spirit. What does it mean to be born of water? That Jesus says you have to be born again.

For me, I think of that, and again, it's described for me in Romans chapter 6, which talks about us being baptized in water. And the baptism in water is what it means to be born of water. But the baptism in water is not the physical act.

The physical act is just a testimony, hopefully of what is happening on the inside. So even children, you can be born again, even though you have not been baptized as yet. And maybe you're not old enough to be baptized.

You can be born again, because you have to be born of water. And I'm going to explain to you what it means to be born of water. And it says this, baptism is a symbol, most of you, all of us may have seen baptism, where somebody is put underwater completely, and then is brought back up.

But being put underwater in Romans chapter 6 is explained what that baptism means when we put somebody underwater. In Romans chapter 6 verse 3, It says, Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death?

Therefore, we have been buried, verse 4, with him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. Verse 5, Therefore, we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, because we who have died for he who has died is freed from sin.

The problem is my sin. The problem is my disobedience to parents. The problem is my not controlling my tongue, or my eyes, or my thoughts, or my ways in which I beat myself up, or whatever it may be. That is the problem.

So, anything I might do on the outside, all the good action doesn't do anything with the problem of my sin. So, when I as a child am struggling to obey my parents, that's a problem of my sin. What should I do?

I need to be born again. What does that mean? For me, that means I have to identify completely in the fact that I too, this part of me that says, I can do whatever I want, has died. Not has been given a little medication to keep himself sedated.

Has not been given some kind of chains around his hands so that he cannot move wherever he wants. No, he has died. We have completely put him to death. And that putting myself underwater completely is a symbol of me bearing that way of life.

So, I am saying when I am born of water, that I am completely identifying in my identity. And I don't know how to use all the right words to probably explain this truth, but I hope you get a sense of what I mean.

It goes into the deepest part of me that I am dead. What is dead? All of my own ways of thinking, I must do it my way. When my parents tell me to do something one way and I do it another way, that is my way.

And God is saying, you have to identify completely with Jesus' death. We sang, we glory in the cross of Christ. If I glory in the cross of Christ, it means I find great excitement and enjoyment in the cross of Christ.

That's a little bit of a crazy statement unless I really understand that it is because my sin, that person of sin has to be completely dead. And I've realized how many times I had that experience. I was baptized here.

But it's so easy that over the years, that very statement and that reality in which I was baptized and back then I was acknowledging that I was fully dead. And I didn't want to live for myself anymore.

I knew my heart back then. I know my heart back then. I really wanted to live for God. How I have to continue making that statement. I have to continue asking myself, are the choices I'm making going down the path of life or the path of that death that I put to death in the past?

That's what I saw out of Romans chapter 6 verse 21. Therefore, what benefit were you then deriving from the things which you are now ashamed of? For the outcome of those things is death. And that was a question I had to ask myself about many things.

Dying to Self Means Rejecting the Ways of Death

And I have to keep on asking myself about many things. This way of thinking right now, that I'm not good enough, that somehow I didn't do what I should have done and I'm just not good enough now. I have to ask myself, what is the outcome of that thing?

That thinking in this case. This outcome of this thinking that I'm not good enough. Where does it end me? It ends me in death. It ends me in me just feeling bad about myself and not the way of God because God says I am all I need to be in Christ.

That I have everything I need in Christ. So this way of thinking that says I'm not good enough is the way of death. So I must reject that way of life. This way of thinking that says I must disobey my parents is a way of death.

This way of writing an email in which I respond harshly and I respond without mercy. I know I have a point. I know I can say that. I'm having an argument with a friend. I know I can say that. But what's the outcome of that?

I know when I was in college I used to argue so much about Jesus versus other religions and all that stuff and I understand its place but I saw how I won a lot of arguments but I never won their hearts.

I never won their souls to Jesus. I went away thinking that I'd won the argument and I'd stood up for Jesus and I stood on his side but I didn't have a sense of their heart to try and win them to Christ.

And so I see that some of the outcomes of even just arguing and arguing and arguing on all these intellectual matters can also have an outcome of death. What is the outcome, God, of what I'm trying to do here?

What is the outcome of trying to send that email? What is the outcome of saying that statement to my wife? What is the outcome of it? Am I trying to get a punch in or I'm really trying to grow her gently towards the truth?

When I started to see that I must have one of those two outcomes always before me I realized what it means to be born of water. I must completely say that my way of doing things is dead. And Romans chapter 8 gives me a lot of verses on that.

I just want to highlight one of that. Romans chapter 8 verse 5 and 6 For those who are according to the flesh and whenever I read the word flesh I substituted with doing my own will. So for those who are according to doing my own will set their minds on the things of doing your own will and those who have their mind set on the spirit of God saying God, what is your will?

Do the things of the spirit. For the mind set on doing his own will once again is death. But the mind set on never doing my own will that is the Holy Spirit never doing my own will is life and peace. And I realized that I was in one of two camps.

I was not 50 -50. That was a realization I needed to realize. I wasn't kind of balancing act between the flesh and the spirit not between my will and God's will and I think that's a lot of the problems for those of us who may have claimed to be born again once and claimed to have Christ.

We can have this balance of mostly spirit and some flesh. Mostly God's will and some of the big things but in all of my day-to-day life my own will, I want to do whatever I want. And I have to send this email that responds in anger I have to do this thing that responds in anger so I'll go to church on Sunday I'll pray before every meal and all of those things but in those things the spirit in those things God your will.

God when I need my kid to get into some kind of education program God your will, your will, your will. Should I buy this house? Your will. But when it comes to just being different it's my will. When it comes to speaking differently it's just my will.

And I realized that God was saying you have to be all in you have to be born of water which means you have to be born of the mindset that says I'm done I'm bearing this way of life and I realized that I have a great tendency and desire to bring up this old way of life because the flesh doesn't lie still very easily.

But to be born of water for me even in a present sense is to prove my identity of being born in water is to be aligning myself to God's principle that I have died with Christ that my old way of living is dead dead consider myself dead to sin that when I see these things coming up I must realize God.

I don't consider myself dead to these things. I want to be born of water. I want to prove my identity as being born of this water. But there's no glamour in just dying. And I think for some of us I know for sometimes in my life I know this death to self and taking up my cross it was the command of Christ but I followed it and I tried to follow it in a vacuum.

I tried just to be born of water where I kept dying dying, dying, dying, dying that I made born of water to be the whole gospel that's not the whole gospel. Dying to self is not all of it. Romans chapter 6 says that we have been united in the likeness of his death so that we may be also in the likeness of his resurrection.

Romans 6 verse 5 there is no death that God asks us to do without him promising an additional resurrection as well an accompanying resurrection as well. And so when I am thinking only of dying to self when I have thought only of dying to self I realize that I am not following the teachings of Jesus completely.

I'm teaching the teachings of Jesus only some of the way that the teachings of Jesus says you must be born of water. That means your identity must be fundamentally defined as I am dead. The way I used to live my life me wanting to do my own will is dead not sedated, not shackled up with handcuffs dead.

We're going to consider him dead. But not only that I'm also born of the spirit. I'm born of God's spirit dwelling in me and here again I want to encourage even the children that you can be born again.

You can be born again. So where you have a complete rejection of the way you used to live or the way you wanted to live or the way you find yourself living that is not according to scripture when God tells you to obey your parents or whatever it is you can be born again right now.

It is something that happens in the heart where you say God. I'm going to consider that part of me all those things about me that wanted to do my own thing. I'm going to consider myself dead to that anymore.

It's like a dead animal, it's like dead. There's nothing in life about it. But I'm also going to consider myself alive to you which means I'm going to ask your Holy Spirit to come upon me. And this is too where I have realized the Holy Spirit differently than I used to understand him before.

Not because I wasn't taught it right but because I listened to many other things in addition to what was in God's word. But I'm starting to see one of the I want to give you one mark of you understanding how you can recognize the Holy Spirit present in you and how you can recognize whether you are being born of the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit and the Love of God

And this is something that has become a real life changer for me. So not only am I dead, I must be born of the Spirit. And Romans chapter 5 verse 5 is that verse for me that has been such a beautiful definition of what I, any child I don't care what age you are can always use this verse to understand whether you are born of the Spirit.

Hope does not disappoint. Here's where it comes because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That's it the proof that you have the Holy Spirit is not that you love God but that you have the love of God over you.

And so for me that means I have the Holy Spirit. I can invite the Holy Spirit to be present in me by always recognizing and remembering that God loves me. This is probably one of the first things you heard when you were 4 or 5.

But this is the most beautiful truth. This is the essence of Christianity for me is that God loves me. It doesn't get more complicated than that. It doesn't have to get more complicated than that. I believe that I can live a beautiful life if I live my whole life in response to just this one truth that God loves me.

It is not even my love for God because that can be so broken. It is the love of God. It's God's love not my love. And that is what the Holy Spirit wants to put upon you. The Holy Spirit wants to keep re-baptizing you rebirthing that knowledge and that understanding that God loves you.

And this is a truth that must become more and more beautiful over time that it is the love of God that is something that is so enjoyable for me to be in. I think of it like a waterfall. I think of it as a river that I just need to get into that river.

I don't have to do a lot of things. I just have to stay in there. It will wash over me it will come through me. I don't even have to start running in the river. I don't have to swim in the river. The river will just flow through me.

This is the love of God. You can be sitting at work you can be driving to work you can be anywhere. You can be going to sleep. And you can have the river flowing at you through you. It's not your love for God.

It's God's love for you. It can keep hitting you day in and day out. And I find that God is telling me often just keep reminding yourself often that I love you. Just listen to my voice telling me whenever you say God speak to me.

He's telling me this. I love you. I love you. Let it be like the river. Why don't we all want to jump into this river? Why don't we all want to stay in this river? The Christian life has become so much more complicated that we've made it about so many other things.

It is not that complicated. It was simple about just getting into the river of God's love that was the Holy Spirit sent to baptize us into the love of God. God will change us over time. God will do all kinds of things through us over time.

But foundationally our identity is that I've got the love of God in me and children. You can get that too. You can go to sleep every night telling yourself God loves me. That's going to be my identity.

Why am I going to obey my parents? Because God loves me. Why am I going to do things differently? Why am I going to be kind to my brothers and sisters? Because God loves me. That's it. I've got the love of God.

We know how much favor children get. Who are children of some big authority. The Prime Minister's children. Or the President's children. Or the head of the army. We know how much favor they get in government circles.

People serve them. People open doors for them. Because they're the children of important people. And that's what I have realized that I belittle God when I don't have that sense of great privilege. Because God is telling me you're my child.

You're sons and daughters of great privilege. We walk around with that sense of confidence and authority against the devil. Because we are children of God. And we're not affected by what other people say about us.

Because we're children of God. Not because the Bible tells me because it's commanded for me that too. But it's because foundationally I'm a child of God. And whenever I hear people say bad things about me the trick or the path for me is to go back into the river of God which God washes over me telling me He loves me and I let Him wash over me enough that I forget about what they have told about me.

Because the love of God is greater. We have to be born of that spirit. God is saying get rid be done be dead with this life which says you must do whatever you want and be born be baptized be completely immersed in the spirit which tells you most of all.

First of all that He loves you. The Holy Spirit is not an experience. The Holy Spirit is not a particular gift. The Holy Spirit is the love of God that must wash over me first of all. That is why it's available to children.

That is why it's available to you of any age you can be born. You can have the Holy Spirit residing in you today because you listen to the voice of God which tells you He loves you. He loves you He loves you.

When your friends are bullying you when people are telling you you're not good enough. This is the person who is born again the person who chooses to listen to the voice of God who is telling you. But I love you.

I love you. I am God and I love you. This is what it means to be born of the spirit. We saw children. We know how children are born into the world. We know the first the first thing the baby must do and the baby must breathe.

Breathing in God's Love as Spiritual Oxygen

If a baby doesn't breathe we don't have life. We have what's called a stillborn baby. And that is what I found about my own life and about other people's lives who just believe in death to self who just believe in taking up the cross everyday and trying to kill that life which is I want to be buried with Christ.

We end up having stillborn babies but are not crying out and not breathing in. And I see that the love of God is the oxygen that us as infants must breathe in. I talked about it being a river. I also see it being that oxygen if you talk about being born again.

When a baby is first born again the first thing the baby must do in order to have life is it must have oxygen. Is this the oxygen that is fueling your life. If we didn't have oxygen in this world we would die, all of us every single one of us no matter what the state of our constitution was we all need oxygen to live in the spiritual realm.

You, our spiritual lives will die quickly if we don't breathe in the oxygen of the love of God. Not that you love God no that God loves you. We must breathe it in all the time. God loves me, God loves me.

This is what sustains our spiritual lives. Is God loves me just as an infant cries out and naturally takes in oxygen. So we too who are born again must naturally in the new spiritual realm take in the love of God.

No matter what my dad said about me no matter what my father said about me no matter what my friends say about me no matter what my co-workers say about me I must breathe in because I am born again. I must breathe in the love of God every moment of every day.

And God was telling me showing me how far I am from reflecting this born again lifestyle. I don't question whether I am going to heaven or hell, my point of this is not to tell you to question whether you are going to heaven or hell, not at all.

I want us to truly act and behave like born again people, people who have truly had this new birth experience where we are dead to that old life and we are breathing in oxygen the oxygen of God's love through the Holy Spirit telling me how much he loves me.

Maybe some of us have gone astray, maybe some of us have forgotten what the essence of our identity was supposed to be, maybe we have made it something exalted like loving God. Maybe we have made it something exalted like working for God.

Let us put those to death too let us breathe in the only oxygen that really exists which is the love of God which is God's love for you infinitely offered to you without a price breathe it in respond to that email, breathing it in respond to our spouses, breathing it in then we will make a difference in our daily lives, not by saying this verse tells me this, I am going to grit my teeth and obey, no we must take a whiff of oxygen.

We must breathe in the love of God. We must take 5 minutes, maybe go somewhere secluded and breathe in the love of God and calm down responding in anger and breathe in God you love me, how does a child of God who is so loved by the God, the creator of the universe, how does he respond to this email.

How does a child of God who has just sinned, respond based on God's word. How does a child of God treat the promises of God when God tells me to come boldly to God's throne for mercy and I've just sinned.