BORN AGAIN TO LIVE LIFE MORE ABUNDANTLY
Mount Hope UMC
Sunday, March 8, 2020
John 3:1-7 New
Living Translation (NLT)
3 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish
religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 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.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell
you the truth, unless you are born again,[a] you
cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?”
exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be
born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “I
assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and
the Spirit.[b] 6 Humans
can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual
life.[c] 7 So don’t
be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must
be born again.’
John 3:1-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
3 There was a man named
Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 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.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth,
unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see
the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?”
exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be
born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one
can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] 6 Humans can reproduce only human life,
but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] 7 So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You[d] must be born
again.’
John 3:1-7 New Living Translation (NLT)
3 There was a man named
Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 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.”
3 Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth,
unless you are born again,[a] you cannot see
the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?”
exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be
born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one
can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.[b] 6 Humans can reproduce only human life,
but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.[c] 7 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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