Wednesday, March 11, 2020

Born Again to Live Life More Abundantly


BORN AGAIN TO LIVE LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY
Mount Hope UMC
Sunday, March 8, 2020

John 3:1-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must be born again.’
John 3:1-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must be born again.’

John 3:1-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must be born again.’


                  Poor Nicodemus.  All in the mustard and couldn’t catch up.  Wanting to be a part of the new truth and bound by the tradition and the law he had grown up.  “We’ve always done it that way” mentality of thinking that’s how God is and that’s what God requires for his people to get into heaven.  Believing that if you just don’t eat forbidden foods, don’t charge interest on loans, don’t steal, don’t cheat, don’t go after your neighbors belonging, including his wives, don’t do this and don’t do that.  Stuck in the past.  Stuck in laws so strict they never were able to obey them and were always doing what they thought was right in their own eyes.  Always asking forgiveness, always asking for another king, another savior and here was God in the flesh, the Savior of the world right before him and Jesus was confusing him with this speech about being born again.

                  As a Pharisee, Nicodemus believed in the strict observance of the written Law of Moses and the oral traditions of the Jewish people.  This was the unwritten Torah.  The Pharisees emerged as a party of laymen and scribes in contradistinction to the Sadducees who were a party of the high priesthood that had traditionally provided the sole leadership of the Jewish people.  The basic difference between the two was in their attitude toward the Torah and the problem of finding in it answers to questions and bases for decisions about the contemporary legal and religious matters arising under circumstances far different from those of the time of Moses.  The Sadducees refused to accept anything that was not based directly on the Torah – the written law.  The Pharisees, however, believed that the law God gave to Moses as twofold, consisting of both the written law and the Oral law, which was the teachings of the prophets ad the oral traditions of the Jewish people.
                 
                  Now, if we haven’t learned anything, we’ve learned that laws, whether written or oral, can be interpreted anyway that seems right in the eye of those administering the law, right?  Afterall, don’t we do the same thing when we use one verse of the Bible to support or convict a position in an argument?  Maybe not you at Mount Hope, but you know folk who do this.

                  According to today’s Scripture, Nicodemus was an old man when he encountered Jesus.  He was a Pharisee and a member of the Sanhedrin.  We will hear more about Nicodemus as we draw nearer to the crucifixion.  This is our first encounter with him and, if you were paying close attention to the text, he is seeking Jesus under the cover of darkness.   I suggest the text mentions this because of his position both as a Pharisee and as a member of the Sanhedrin – both of which were seeking to find a reason to kill Jesus because he represented a threat to their rule and control over the Jewish population.

                  But Jesus’ works and teachings were too tempting to ignore.  Nicodemus had to find a way to know more about this young man who knew Scripture so well and whose miracles had preceded him.  His curiosity got the better of him and throwing caution to the wind, he waited until dark to find Jesus.  He greets him as a revered teacher and calls him “Rabbi” and acknowledges that he knows Jesus could only have come from God because of his knowledge and the signs he had performed and Jesus responds by telling him that no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.  This statement totally throws Nicodemus off because all his life he has been ingrained with the letter and not the intent of the Law of Moses.  He doesn’t understand that while he knows what the Torah says and he knows what the oral tradition of his people are, he is clueless about the intent God meant in the law.
                  See tradition is something that God did not command.  There are two definitions of tradition:

                  1.  The transmission of customs or beliefs from generation to generation, or the fact of being passed on in this way such that every shade of color is fixed by tradition and governed by religious laws.
                  2.  In theology it is a doctrine believed to have divine authority though nothing in the scriptures support it.

                  We live more by tradition of the law than we do the actual written law.  Why?  Because we have believed the interpretation of the law that the priests, pastors, bishops, rabbi’s and those who supposedly have anointing, training and knowledge have told us.  I’m telling you right now I am willing to bet there are people in here right now who would rather depend more about what my interpretation and exhortation of the Word is than read it for themselves and ask God to open the Word up to them.

                  But Nicodemus wanted to be born again.  How?  He was old and he couldn’t go back into the womb.  He knew the Law and could recite it, probably word for word, book by book.  See, church, the Word was in his mouth, but it wasn’t written on his heart.  Being born again is not so much about what the word says as it is about how the word changes your heart so that you are doers of the word, not just hearers only.  It’s about how the word rocks your world and turns it upside down so that you become the living embodiment of the word.

                  That’s what Jesus was.  He was the walking Word.  I have said that you might be the only Bible some people read.  What does your text look like?  How does your life read?  Does your walk imitate your talk?  When you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior and got baptized into new life, did you take on new life or did you return to your old life?

                  See, being born again is about more than accepted Jesus and going down in the water to be purified.  When you get up from that water you should be allowing the Holy Spirit to totally transform you from the old to the new so that God can use you for His glory. 

You should be so full of the Holy Spirit that if a been stung you, it would fly away singing, “there’s power in the blood.”                You should be so full of the Holy Spirit that it flows out of you to everybody who crosses your path.  You should be so full of the Holy Spirit that your light blinds unbelievers and backsliders.  You should be so full of the Holy Spirit that people recognize the glow and want to know how to get it for themselves.

Being born again means that the old you has passed away and you have the glow of the newness of life.  The things you used to do, you don’t do anymore.  Sometimes the people you used to know, you don’t see anymore.  The places you used to go, you don’t go anymore.  The things you thought you needed in your old life have no place in your new life.  Being born again means that you are a new creature and you have received a clean heart and been renewed with a right spirit.  Being born again means that you have allowed the spirit to enter into your temple and control your life – your thoughts, your body and your soul.  That’s why we ask God to decrease me so that you can increase in me.  Being born again means that you have intentionally increased your faith in Jesus and everything you have been taught as a Christian becomes real because you have developed a direct and personal relationship with God.

The song says: “Moved from my old house and I moved from my old friends and I moved from my old way of life.  Thank God I moved out to a brand new life.  He changed my old way with words.  He changed my old narrow mind.  He changed my heart and gave me a new start.  Thank God I moved out to a brand new life.  Can’t you see I’m a new man; don’t you know I’ve got a new name and one day I’ll live in a brand new land.  Thank God I’ve moved out to a brand new life.  I’ve got a new walk and I’ve got a new talk and I’ve got a new look and I’ve got a new name and I’ve got a new heart and I’ve got a new mind and a new start is coming my way choir.  Thank God I moved out to a brand new life.”

I promise you, church, that when you start to allow your born again spirit to take control, there ain’t nothing and nobody, and I do mean nothing and nobody that will be able to stand against you because you’ll have a new walk and a new talk.  No weapon formed against you shall ever prosper and you will be able to do all things through Christ which strengthens you because the steps of a good man or woman are ordered by the Lord.  You will not stumble or fall, so, rejoice for the steps of the righteous are ordered of God.  In the time of trouble, God will uphold you; God will preserve you; God will sustain you.  In the time of trouble God will life you up, so rejoice for your born again steps will be ordered of God.



                 

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