Now I want to talk to you today
about the greatest thing that can ever happen to your life.
I want to talk to you about the new birth. And for most of us
here today, we have already been born again. And I want to walk
you through what is it that God did in my heart and in my soul
when I was birthed into His kingdom to give us a greater appreciation. for what God has done. And for
some here today, you have not yet been born again. And our
prayer and our desire is that the Spirit of God would be so
at work in your life today that this would be the day that God
would caused you to be born again from above. So whether you've
already been birthed into the kingdom, or whether you need
to be birthed into the kingdom, this message is for you. So I want you to take your Bibles
and turn with me to the gospel of John. You remember John chapter
3, you read it on Sunday morning about ten years ago. So I want
you to turn to John chapter 3. And I want us to look today at
this encounter between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus and
I want to draw out of this several truths about what it is to be
born again. First, I want to read the text,
the passage, John chapter 3. I want to begin in verse 1 and,
of course, this is God's inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word. The Word of God reads. 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, 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 answered." Now please note,
Nicodemus has never asked a question yet. Jesus has read Nicodemus
like an open book. Jesus has read the letter without
ever opening the envelope. Jesus looks into Nicodemus' heart,
He looks through Nicodemus' heart, and He answers the question that
has not yet even been answered. Just like Jesus looks into your
heart and my heart, and He knows us intimately and He knows us
as no one else knows us. Jesus answered, verse 3, 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 into the kingdom of God. For that
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of Spirit is Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said
to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes,
and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes
from and where it is going. So is everyone. who is born of the Spirit. The greatest miracle that God
ever performs is the miracle of the new birth. Greater than
God creating physical life in the womb is when God creates
spiritual life in the heart. Greater than God creating physical
eyes to see the Son is when God creates spiritual eyes to see
the Son of God. Greater than God birthing us
into our earthly family is when God births us into His spiritual
family. Greater than when God created
all of nature. is when God creates a new nature
inside of a person. The greatest miracle that God
ever performs is the miracle of the new birth. Greater than
when He turns water into wine is when He turns sinners and
to saints. Now this is precisely the focus
that is before us in this encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus and
the subject is the miracle of the new birth which Nicodemus
so desperately needs. I want to tell you three things
just by way of introduction about Nicodemus. Number one, he was
a Pharisee. We see that in verse 1, there
was a man of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were the most arch-conservative,
religiously committed people on planet earth, maybe in any
generation at any time. They believed the Bible. They
believed the whole Bible. In fact, they believed the Bible
so much, they added to the Bible just so that they could have
more things to obey. They believed in the sovereignty
of God. They believed in the reign of God in heaven. They
believed in a future kingdom. They were highly religious. The second thing that we learn
about Nicodemus is that he is a member of the Sanhedrin, and
that's at the end of verse 1, he is a ruler of the Jews. That
is to say, Nicodemus was a part of the inner elite circle in
the nation Israel. Now there were about two thousand
Pharisees in the nation. And out of the Pharisees and
a few others, there would be 70 who would comprise the Sanhedrin. It was like the Supreme Court
and the Senate combined in one. They were the power brokers for
the entire nation and Nicodemus has skyrocketed to the top of
society in his day. Nicodemus was one of the most
highly respected, highly religious, highly influential men in all
of Israel, and on top of that, verse 10 says, he was the teacher
of Israel. Not just a teacher, like one
of many teachers, he was the teacher of Israel. That means
no one knew the Bible like Nicodemus did. He knew chapter and verse
in the Old Testament before there was even chapter and verse. He
was a walking Bible. Nicodemus was the man that you
would go to to ask your questions about the Bible, and he was recognized
by all in the nation as the man who would stand up in front of
others and be the most authoritative teacher in the entire nation.
He had the last word on virtually everything that pertained to
the Bible. Bible. He was a theologian of
theologians. He knew the Bible inside out
and no doubt he grew up in such an environment. So this is Nicodemus. He's the most religious. He's
the most fastidious. He is the most powerful, He is
the most biblical man in all of Israel. In fact, if you were
to point out the one man that you would say knows the Lord
in the entire nation of Israel, the name of Nicodemus would immediately
rise to the surface as the man who must be right with God. Nicodemus had everything going
for him. His spiritual resume was the
envy of everyone. He had everything except the
one thing, he was not born again. And it
is to this live nerve that Jesus will press His finger. and say
to Nicodemus something that no one has ever said to Nicodemus. Jesus looks him in the eyes one
on one, man to man, and Jesus says to him, you must be born
again. And that's exactly what Jesus
says to every one of us in this room here today, that you must
be born again. What does it mean to be born
again? The new birth is God implanting
new life into the spiritually dead soul. It is the life of
God Himself. in the soul of a man. You no
doubt have heard of the doctrine of justification, justification
by faith, and that all takes place in heaven. It's a legal
transaction in which God the Father declares those who believe
in His Son to be the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ,
and in a sense, we could say that's paperwork in heaven. And
we go from being in one column to being moved over to the other
column and the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us or
it is deposited into our account, if you will. But the new birth
is something that takes place on the earth. It is the life
of God who is in heaven coming down to this earth and dwelling
within our soul. That's what the new birth is.
It's...if justification is a transaction, the new birth is a transfusion. of spiritual life in the dead
soul. It is a spiritual conception
that creates a new person. It's a spiritual resurrection. Before we were born again, we
were dead in the grave of sin. We had no spiritual life within
us. All we had was an empty, hollow existence. And in the
new birth, it's just like when Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. And Lazarus was brought up from
the grave and the life of God came into him physically That's
exactly what happens to you and to me spiritually. Jesus said,
I've come that you might have life and have it abundantly. And until we're born again, we've
never really lived, not like God intends us to live. But in
the new birth, this life of God comes within us. So I want to
set before you as we look at this text today, this passage,
several headings for what the new birth is. And it is my prayer
that you are born again, and that if you're not born again,
that you will be born again today. And if you are, that you will
have an even greater appreciation for the miracle that God has
performed in your life. So, let's walk through this.
I want to start in verse 3. And the first thing that I want
you to note about the new birth is that it is a necessary birth. Note verse 3, Jesus says, "'Truly,
truly, I say to you.'" Now, stop right there. Everything that
Jesus said was absolutely true. Jesus spoke infallibly words
of truth on whatever subject that He addressed. But some things
that Jesus said were far more important than other things.
Some teachings of our Lord rose to the highest level of importance,
and if you get anything, you have to get this. And whenever
Jesus wanted to introduce these most important truths, He would
flag the attention of the listener by saying, truly, truly, I say
to you. So as we look at this, this should
leap off the page. This is the most important, among
the most important truths that Jesus ever spoke. Now notice what He says after
that. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God. Jesus states it in the negative
so that His words have a sharp edge to them. Jesus is being
intentionally provocative here. He's almost stiff-arming Nicodemus
saying, you can't even see the kingdom of God unless you are
born again. And this word cannot is different
from Jesus saying may not. You know the difference between
may and can? May is a word of permission. Can is a word of
ability. Jesus is saying, you don't even
have the ability to see the kingdom of God, much less enter into
the kingdom of God. He will repeat it in verse 5,
unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God. And then in verse 7, he says,
you must. be born again." This is a necessary
birth. If you're to be right with God
and if you are to go to heaven one day, you must be born again. Now note he says, cannot see
the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? It is the government of grace. It is the sphere of salvation. It is the reign of redemption. It is to enter into the saving
grace of God. And there is no way that any
one of us here today can enter into the saving grace of God
unless we are born again. The great evangelist of the 18th
century, George Whitefield, went up and down the eastern seacoast
here in the early colonies and would go into New York and Boston
and Philadelphia and Charleston and he would often preach on
the new birth and tell the crowds, thousands of them, you must be
born again. And one woman came up to him
and said, why do you keep saying to us, you must be born again? And he said, because dear woman,
you must be born again. I say to you what Jesus says,
you must be born again. And Jesus said this to the most
religious man in all of Israel, someone who had grown up in this
religious community, and so He says it to you and to me. And
not only was it a necessary birth, but second, it was a second birth. Now look at verse 3 again, unless
one is born again. Do you see the word again? Unless
one is born a second time. And that's exactly how Nicodemus
understood this because look at the next verse. When Nicodemus
says he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and
be born, can he? What Jesus is saying is, it's
not enough to have one birth, you must have a second birth. In verse 6 He says, that which
is born of flesh is flesh, talking about a physical birth. And that
which is born of spirit is spirit, referring to a spiritual birth. You see, it's not enough just
to be born once. You have to be born twice in
order to enter into the Kingdom of God. Now, two things are implied
in this, and number one, that means there was something desperately
wrong with our first birth. If we have to be born again,
that says that our first birth was a disaster. It was a disaster,
not necessarily physically, but spiritually because we were born
in sin. When Adam sinned, his sin was
charged to the entire human race. In reality, you became a sinner
over 6,000 years ago, long before you were ever conceived in your
mother's womb. But the sin nature of Adam was
passed down to his children who passed it down to their children,
and it has come down through all of the generations, and when
you were conceived in your mother's womb, The poisonous venom of
sin. was transferred to you, and the
psalmist says, in sin did my mother conceive me. Not referring
to the act of the conception, but to the pollution that was
passed down. You and I came into this world
sinners. We were born in sin. We were
born under sin. The psalmist says that we went
forth from our mother's womb speaking lies. We were corrupted
by sin. That's why you don't have to
teach a little child to disobey. You have to teach a child to
obey because the bent towards sin is already in us. So that's why you and I have
to be born again because our first birth was...it was ruinous. But the second thing that it
implies, and this is very important, that when we were born physically,
we were born outside the Kingdom. Therefore we have to enter into
the Kingdom, our firstborn...in our first birth we were made
foreigners to the Kingdom, aliens of the Kingdom, strangers of
the grace of God. It is only by a second birth. Are we...do we enter into the
Kingdom of God? This is why you must have a second
birth. But third, as we continue to
look at this, I want you to note, it's an unmerited birth. Again, this is implied in verse
3, but let me ask you this by way of analogy. What did you
do before you were born to deserve to be born the first time? Nothing. The answer is nothing. You did nothing to deserve to
be born the first time because you couldn't have done anything
before you were born. God simply caused you to be born
physically. Well, the same is true spiritually.
There's nothing that you or I could do to deserve to be born again. It is all of the grace of God. Our second birth is not by good
works. It's not by church membership.
It's not by water baptism. It's not by personal integrity.
It's not by spiritual service. It's not by giving money. It's
not by attending money. There is nothing you can do and
there's nothing that you have ever done to deserve to be born
again. It is all of grace. That is why
Titus 3 and verse 5 says, he saved us not on the basis of
deeds which we have done in righteousness but according to His mercy by
the washing of regeneration. It's an unmerited birth. And you may be saying to yourself
as you look at your past, as you look maybe at your present,
and you come to the realization how unworthy you are to enter
into the kingdom of God. Listen, the answer is every one
of us is unworthy to enter into the kingdom of God. But there's
more I want to show you here. As we continue to look at verse
3, fourth I want you to note, it's a heavenly birth. In verse 3, Jesus says, unless
one is born again, you see the word again, it can also be translated
In fact, in other places in the New Testament, the very same
word is translated from above, and there's a primary and secondary
meaning, and this is one of the very real meanings of this word,
which is to say, the first time we were born, we were born from
below. The second birth is from above. It must come down from above. There's nothing in this world
and there is nothing within me that can bring about the new
birth. It's an out-of-this-world experience. It must come down from the throne
of God above. It is a heavenly birth. Let me put it to you this way.
Heaven must come to you long before you ever go to heaven.
God must come to you long before you ever go to God. Now salvation
is not just getting man out of hell and into heaven, salvation
is also getting God out of heaven and into man. And that's what
happens in the new birth. God comes to live inside of us
and the life of God now indwells us. It is a heavenly birth from
above. And if you've been born again,
you have God living inside of you and you have the very life
of God within you and it animates you and it empowers you and it
lives within you and through you, this heavenly birth. Fifth, it's an illuminating birth. Look at verse 3 again. In verse
3, there's one key word I want you to know. Unless one is born
again, he cannot...what's the next word?...see. He cannot see the kingdom of
God. Now this word, see, does not
mean to see physically. It means to see spiritually. It means to see with understanding. It means to perceive with insight. The new birth is in reality an
eye-opening experience in which we are given eyes to see what
we previously could not see. Before we were born again, we
were spiritually blind and could not see who God is. We knew about God, but we could
not see Him for who He is within our heart and soul. We could
not see ourselves for who we truly are. We could not see with
understanding my need for grace and my need for the new birth. You see, in the new birth...
God not only gives you a new heart, He gives you new eyes. And now for the first time, everything
makes sense. It's like lights have come on
inside of your soul and you can now see. But before the new birth,
you could pick up a Bible and read it and it was just black
print on white paper. But the moment you are born again,
you see what you could not previously see, you now have 20-20 vision
spiritually. What did John Newton write in
that great hymn, Amazing Grace? I once was blind but now I see. Before you're born again, you
go to a Bible study on campus, you come up here to hear the
Word of God. Before you're born again, it
doesn't make any sense. You might as well be reading
your Bible in a dark room with blindfolders on at midnight You
just can't see. And the moment you are born again,
it's like the lights come on, the blinders are removed, it
is noonday with the sun shining and for the first time in your
life it hits you and everything now is seen for what it is. You see who God is. You see who
you are and your need for God. You see Christ as a glorious
Savior. The new birth is an illuminating
birth. Six, it's a cleansing birth.
Look, if you would, at verse 5, Jesus said, "'Truly, truly,
I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God.'" The word water here pictures
a washing. and a cleansing, a way of moral
defilement. It's metaphorical language. It's
not real water. He's not talking about water
baptism. Water in the baptistry cannot
wash away sin. What is taking place here is
Jesus is using metaphors. And there are two metaphors for
the working of the Holy Spirit in the new birth. One is in verse
8, the Holy Spirit is like wind that blows like the wind. It's
powerful in its effect. But the other metaphor is in
verse 5, it is water. That cleanses, that's what the
Holy Spirit does. He purges our soul and He washes
us and cleanses us so that on the inside we really are a new
person in Christ. In Ezekiel 36 verse 25, a passage
with which Nicodemus no doubt was familiar, he just couldn't
see because he has not yet been born again. In Ezekiel 36 25,
God is the speaker and God says, I will sprinkle clean water on
you. and you will be clean." He's
talking here in analogous language. He's not saying God's going to
baptize us, He's saying God will wash us of the moral defilement
of our sins. He says, I will cleanse you from
all your filthiness and from all your idols. You see, in the
new birth, God takes out your heart of stone and He gives you
a heart of flesh. A heart of stone is resistant
to God. It has no life within it. It's
hardened. It repels the gospel. But in the new birth, God takes
out this heart of stone. It's a heart transplant and He
puts a new heart inside of us. It's a heart of flesh, meaning
it's alive. It has a spiritual pulse. It's
responsive to the things of God. But as God puts this new heart
into our soul, He first cleanses the soul. Why put a new heart
into a dirty soul? And so, God cleanses us from
the inside. He purges and purifies us. in the new birth. It is a cleansing
birth. And oh how good it feels to be
clean. Have you ever gone any period
of time without taking a bath? I mean, we all have at some point. And it just feels so right to
be clean again and for the water to wash us and purify us. Just multiply that ten thousand
times ten thousand times for the soul to be made clean before
God. That happens in the new birth. Every one of us needs to have
a clean soul before God and it comes only through the new birth.
I want to keep going here. Number seven. It is an instantaneous
birth, and that is implied in this metaphor that we see in
verse 5, verse 3, verse 6, verse 7, the fact that we must be born
again, or born from above. This metaphor clearly implies
that it is an immediate birth. The new birth is not progressive. Sanctification is progressive.
Sanctification takes place over the duration of our life until
we pass away. But the new birth is a point
on the timeline of our life. There is one moment when you
are unborn and the next moment you are born. It doesn't take
place over an extended period of time. In my billfold, I have
my driver's license. And when I look at my driver's
license, it says several things. One, it says I was born in 1951. Well my mother would be very
happy that the labor did not take place for the entire year.
So it says more than 1951. It says April 1951. But my birth didn't take an entire
month to transpire. It says April the 13th, 1951,
and I can tell you it was 1013 at night. There was a moment
when I was not yet born, and then in a moment I was born. The same happens spiritually. You may not be able to pinpoint
that exact moment, but that moment, if you're born again, did happen
at a point in time. It's an instantaneous birth. What happened on the day of Pentecost
in Acts chapter 2? Peter stood up before thousands
of people and he preached, this Jesus whom you have crucified,
God is raised from the dead. And they said, what must we do
to be saved? And Peter said, repent. And it
says 3,000 received His Word and were added to their number
in a day...in a day. It wasn't the month of Pentecost,
it was the day of Pentecost. And at the end of Acts chapter
2, as the church carried out its witness in Jerusalem, it
says that day by day the Lord was adding to their number those
who were being saved. Not month by month, year by year,
not season by season, but day by day by day by day. Some were being birthed on Tuesday.
Others were being birthed on Wednesday. Others were being
regenerated on Thursday. You see, the new birth is an
instantaneous birth. It's what happened with the Ethiopian
eunuch. As soon as Philip explained the Scripture to him in Isaiah
53, he wanted to stop immediately. He believed in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He wanted to be baptized. It happened in a moment, in a
day. And what happened to Saul of
Tarsus on the road to Damascus in Acts chapter 9? He had letters
in hand going to Damascus to apprehend the Christians, and
the text says, a light out of heaven, knocked
him off his high horse. And he looked up and said, Lord,
who are You? He answered his own question. And in that moment, he was birthed
into the kingdom of God. The same happened in Acts 16
in Philippi when Paul went to the riverside and preached to
some women who were gathered there for prayer. And the Lord
opened her heart, Lydia's heart, and she was suddenly born into
the kingdom. Paul was thrown into prison and
at midnight God sent an earthquake and the doors were thrown open.
And the jailer said, what must I do to be saved? And Paul said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And the
text says, that very night. They were brought into the kingdom,
not only the jailer, but his whole household. That's how instantly
the new birth comes. And we go from light...we go
from darkness to light. in a moment. That's how glorious
the new birth is. But I want to give you another
heading as we look at this. It's a comprehensive birth. To
be born again by this metaphor implies an entire new person
is birthed at the moment of the delivery. Can you imagine if
you were born and you only had, you were born with just one ear
and one eye and one arm and one leg? And then when you went to
kindergarten, you got your second ear. And then when you went to
junior high school, we gave you your second eye. And then when
you went to college, we gave you your second arm and you just
kind of grew into becoming A full person, no, that's not the way
it works. You got everything when you were
birthed, two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs. And for the rest of your life,
it's just a matter of what you were given at the time of birth
growing and developing and becoming stronger and stronger. This is
exactly what takes place in the new birth. From the top of your head to
the bottom of your feet, in that moment, everything about you
changed and it changed dramatically. You know why? Because total depravity
had corrupted the totality of who you were. Your mind was darkened. Your heart was defiled. Your
will was deadened. Total depravity, we call it total
depravity because the total of your personhood is ruined by
sin. The new birth must reverse the
curse. The new birth must reverse every
aspect of what total depravity has ruined. So therefore, that's
why you receive a new mind and now you suddenly see the world
as Christ sees. You have the mind of Christ.
You receive a new heart. You now have new desires and
new affections and new loves and you now love what you used
to hate and now you hate what you used to love and you have
a new will. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says,
if anyone is in Christ... He is a new creature. It's a total makeover. In fact,
it's more than a makeover. It's a takeover of your life. That's how comprehensive it is. Ninth, it's a radical birth. It's not a slight change. It is a dramatic change. Second Corinthians 5, 17 says,
the old things passed away, behold new things have come. It has
changed you from the inside out and you're not the person that
you once were. You've gone from death to life.
You've gone from grunge to godliness. You've gone from profanity to
purity. You've gone from vulgarity to
virtue. This is the new life inside of
you and you're a new person. All things are made new. And finally, I want you to note,
it's a sovereign birth. Verse 8 tells us this very clearly. that only God can bring about
the new birth. Notice it says, the wind blows
where it wishes. No one controls the wind. No
one starts the wind. No one can steer the wind. No one can stop the wind. The wind has a mind of its own.
The wind is autonomous from man. It's independent. And in reality,
it is the invisible hand of God, according to the book of Job,
that guides and steers and stops the wind. And what Jesus is teaching
here is so it is in the new birth. He tells us that the Holy Spirit
in the new birth is just like the wind. Now, you can't see
the wind, can you? And you can't see the Holy Spirit,
but you can feel the wind, and you see the effects of the wind,
and you come under the power of the wind. So, he says you
hear the sound of it, verse 8. and do not know where it comes
from and where it is going? Just picture one of these tornadoes,
how it blows through the Midwest and that tornado passes over
several cities and then it just descends upon one little city
and then it pinpoints certain blocks and devastates certain
blocks and then it picks back up and it passes over several
more blocks and then it drops down on the other side of town.
And then it lifts back up and it moves across a field to another
city. What a picture that is of the
movement of the Holy Spirit of God as the Spirit of God descends
upon a house. and passes over three bedrooms
and goes all the way to the last bedroom and there descends upon
a college student, or descends upon a father or mother and there
is the new birth and then the wind picks back up and it goes
down the street and descends upon another house. And behind
all of this is the sovereign will of God who alone can direct
the wind. If you have been born again from
above, it is the result of the sovereign guidance and activity
of the Holy Spirit that has been pinpointed towards your heart
and has blown into your life with extraordinary force. so much so that it is irresistible
and you cannot hold it back because it comes with the power of Almighty
God. Have you been born again? The
question is not, are you in church? The question is not, do you have
a Bible? The question is not, do you go to small groups? The
question is not, did you grow up in a Christian home? The question
is not, have you joined the church? Here is the question. Have you
been born from above? Because unless you are born again,
you cannot see nor enter into the kingdom of God. Several years ago, in a church
that I was pastoring, I had a physician in our membership who was trained
by Cooley and DeBakey in performing heart transplant surgeries. He came to the state of Arkansas
and was ready to perform the first open heart transplant. He had a beeper. on his belt,
waiting for the call, waiting for the beep. He had a patient
who had a bad heart, a patient who was dying, and that beeper
went off. And on the east coast, I think
it was up in Maryland, someone had been killed in a car wreck.
They brought the body in. They preserved the heart. Someone
opened up the chest cavity. They pulled out the heart. They
took this heart. They kept it pulsing. They put
it in a box. They put the box into an ambulance.
They sped the ambulance to the airport. They put the box into
a private jet that was chartered. They flew the box across the
country to Little Rock, Arkansas. There an ambulance was waiting.
to receive the box, they put it in the ambulance, they sped
it to the hospital and there this physician was waiting. They brought the box into him,
he opened it up, he took the heart out, he then opened up
the heart cavity of the person who was dying and literally took
out that old heart. and handed it to the nurse and
she set it aside and he pulled out this heart and put it in
the chest cavity and then made the right connections and suddenly
this heart began to beat and to pump blood into the body and
the person lived. Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever seen yourself laid
out in the operating room on the stretcher and has God ever
opened up your chest cavity? and taken out that foul, stinking,
dirty, lustful, envious heart and just discarded it. It was
a heart of stone. It was dead. It was lifeless. It was unresponsive to the things
of God. It was resistant to the Word
of God. And has God ever taken out this
new heart, a heart of flesh? A heart that is alive unto God,
a heart that responds to God, a heart that loves the things
of God. And put this new heart into your
soul and then has God ever breathed into you the breath of life,
just like He breathed into Adam and Adam came alive physically. Has God ever breathed into you
spiritually and breathed the life of God Himself within you? Have your eyes ever been opened
to now see for the first time the things of God? Has He given you new ears to
now hear the voice of the shepherd? Has He given you a whole new
life? This is what it is to be born
again. And if you've never been born
again, I point you to the One who spoke these words, to the
Lord Jesus Christ who says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is life and He alone can give
you life. You must call upon His name.
You must seek the Lord while He may be found and call upon
Him while He is near. You must believe in the Lord
Jesus Christ and the greatest thing that will ever happen to
your life is to be born again. And you can be just like Nicodemus. You can know the Bible up to
your eyeballs. You can be in the midst of a
religious group and still not be born again. And so I say to
you, you must be born again. If you'll call upon the name
of the Lord, if you'll turn to Him, you will know what it is
to have the life of God within you. And for the vast majority
of us here today who have been born again, Let us understand
what a big thing that has happened in our life. This is not a small
thing, this is a big thing that you now who once were blind,
now you see. And you once were dead and now
you're alive. Praise God for the new birth. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, how we
thank You for the miracle of the new birth. And God, I pray
that You'll cause us to treasure this experience within our heart.
And for those who have never been birthed into Your kingdom,
oh, may that wind blow out of heaven. And may that wind blow
into this place and may the wind bring new life to spiritually
dead hearts in Jesus' name. Amen.