Category: Sermons

Fourth of July 2021

Acts 4:24-31

Pastor Barry Kerner

Fourth of July fireworks are an American tradition that comes around every year, no matter how loudly or softly Freedom has rung throughout the land in the year since our last display of civic pride. Sometimes the Fourth can feel a lot like Christmas – it can have us wishing we were children again, innocent celebrators of a story, whose symbols are colorful and exciting; young players in a story whose deeper meanings didn’t really concern us kids much. We could simply enjoy the tinsel, or the sparklers, the reindeer or the marching band.

There’s a lot to love about celebrating the birth of our nation and our principled commitment to freedom. Patriotism has a definite allure, it reminds us that we are part of something larger than ourselves. It makes us feel we belong.

I grew up outside of Pittsburgh in a Borough called Forest Hills. It was a community with good schools and strong citizen involvement. Perhaps it was a bit like Delphi Falls, or the small town where you grew up. Our kids loved the Fourth of July celebration in Forest Hills. Everyone would walk to the high school where the fireworks display drew hundreds of families. We would throw down our blankets beside our neighbors and strike up conversations. All the kids ran freely amid the crowd, yelling and trying not to step on the smaller children. Patriotic music played over the loud speaker. As the sun descended, anticipation rose…things quieted, and the kids found their way back to their family blankets. Everyone settled down, passed around the bug spray, put earphones over the babies’ ears; and the youngest children, a little afraid of strangers and loud booming noises, tried to look brave. As the first rockets flew overhead and burst into color and light…we all looked up.

Looking up into the evening sky, is, I think, a primal human impulse.  We look up at billowing clouds and at menacing ones too – just as our ancestors did on the plains. We look up at the sunset and gaze at the stars in the heavens– as humans have done since the beginning of time.

Job 35:5 tells us to, “Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you.”

Psalm 8 proclaims, “1 Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. 2 Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

In Psalm 123:1the Psalmist declared, “To You I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens!”

Isaiah 40:26 reminds us, “Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing.

There are many people who don’t turn their eyes to the heavens which declare God’s glory. Instead, their eyes are cast downward focusing on the things of this world, their cares and concerns, and their circumstances. When that happens we often forget that that the one who gave us life, the one who loves and cares for us is seated on His throne in the heavens and that his son Jesus Christ sits at he right hand.

Proverbs 3:6 reminds us, “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Psalm 4:1 implores, “Answer me when I cry out, my righteous God! Set me free from my troubles! Have mercy on me! Listen to my prayer!”

Exodus 23:25 tells us, “But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst.”

Many Christians want God to bless them and to care for them but they fail to acknowledge Him, spend the time to fellowship with him through prayer and the studying of scripture or wholeheartedly serve Him. Think about the difference it would make if we would. The early church certainly experienced the benefits.  Let’s look at an occasion when the Apostles were commanded to preach no more about Jesus.

Acts 4: 24And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is: 25Who by the mouth of thy servant David hast said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? 26The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. 27For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, 28For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. 29And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, 30By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. 31And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

This exciting Scripture shows us what can happen when you decide to choose to acknowledge, pray and serve the Lord. Today, I want you to think through this text with me and see what God does for his people in a time of peril. He will do the same for America today if we will acknowledge Him, pray to Him and serve Him as the early church did:

WHAT GOD CAN DO: HE ANSWERS THE PRAYERS OF HIS PEOPLE

All the incredible things that happened in the above passage, happened because the people prayed. They went to God in prayer. As it has been said, “Much prayer, much power! Little prayer, little power!” Dutch Sheets taught in his book on Intercessory Prayer that there are things that God does for us, that would not be done, if we had not prayed. James wrote in the book of James, “We have not because we ask not.” Whatever your theology, you cannot walk away from a reading of the Bible without admitting that there is a relationship between desperate faith-filled prayer and God’s intervention into the affairs of men and nations.

WHAT DOES GOD DO: HE DOES WHAT HE WANTS TO DO

He alone is the Sovereign Lord and Creator. The early church prayed knowing that their prayers did not violate God’s Sovereignty. He is still God and is not taking applications for His replacement. This is the tension between prayer and Sovereignty. We ask but God is not bound by our prayers. This is actually good news. Thank God because He sees what we don’t and knows what we don’t, and that He will move in our best interest. 

Why pray? Because God in His Sovereignty has chosen to partner with praying men and women in carrying out His plans and purposes. Our prayers do make a difference and our faith in God’s Sovereignty only increases our confidence that God’s will will be done. I also believe that the absence of our prayers can create delays and detours. This again is the tension of human responsibility and Divine Sovereignty. God is Sovereign and Just! He can do what He wants because He is God. He never gets pinned in a corner by man.

There was a time in our nation when our President saw this at work. President Lincoln  during the Civil War saw the Sovereign Hand of God at work.nThe Civil War produced the death of more Americans — almost half a million — than any war before or since. With Americans dying on both sides, the War taxed everyone’s ability to understand what God was doing here. This was no holy war against the pagan infidels; this was a war that turned brother against brother, father against son, and Christian against Christian. This was a God-forsaken war if there ever was one, and yet Lincoln saw God using this war to set straight the course of history.

“Both parties deprecated war,” Lincoln proclaimed in his Second Inaugural Address, “but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came….Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. The prayers of both can not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

“If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away.”

“Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’“

WHAT DOES GOD DO: HE  HONORS HIS WORD

The early church prayed the word of God that was relevant to their situation. Believers should seize God’s promises relevant to our nation’s crisis situations as well.

Listen to the words of one of our former Presidents: Woodrow Wilson, the 28^th President of the United States said,  “There are a good many problems before the American people today, and before me as President, but I expect to find the solution to those problems just in the proportion that I am in prayer and the study of the Word of God.”

Let’s hold to God’s Word regardless of what the media tells us. Our current circumstances do not make null and void the Word of God. This is the time to demonstrate the power of God’s promises to people.

WHAT DOES GO DO: HE RULES THE RULERS OF THE EARTH

Psalm 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance.”

Proverbs 21:1reminds us,  “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it wheresoever he will.”

1 Samuel 13:13  Samuel said, “You acted foolishly, You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time.”

Listen to America’s founding President, George Washington,who understood his need for God’s hand upon his life. “Direct my thought, words and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate Blood of the Lamb, and purge my  heart by Thy Holy Spirit….Daily frame me more and more into the likeness of Thy Son Jesus Christ.”  

Other Presidents understood this as well. Listen to them:

George Bush, 41st President said, “The Lord our God be with us, as HE was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us; so that He may incline our hearts to Him, to walk in all His ways…that all peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other.”

Harry S. Truman, 33rd US. President said, “We can all pray. We all should pray. We should ask for courage, wisdom, for the quietness of soul which comes alone in them who place their lives in His hands.”

WHAT CAN GOD DO: HE CONFUSES THE PLANS OF THE ENEMY

The early church prayed, “Behold their threats…” and the plans of those who stood against them were thwarted. In Israel He caused the enemy to turn on himself. Gideon attacked with clay pots and torches and God caused the enemy to be scattered David armed with just with a rock and sling took down Goliath and ruined the plans of the Philistines. God knows and will often reveal what the enemy is up to. The Lord showed Elijah what the king was thinking in his chambers. With God’s help Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar what he dreamed.

WHAT CAN GOD DO: HE PROVIDES PROTECTION FOR US

In 2 Kings 6:16 the enemy had surrounded the Prophet Elisha and the inhabitants of the city.  “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked. 16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” 17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked.

Our nation’s history is filled with remarkable stories of how the impossible became possible because of God’s intervention. There was a phrase in the 1840’s that was bandied about in Europe: “A special Providence watches over children, drunkards and the United States.” While the comment was undoubtedly meant to be derogatory toward the then-young nation, there is no doubting that there was some truth to it. American history is littered with truly bizarre moments where the U.S. has managed the impossible. Whether because an accomplished enemy suddenly made a rookie mistake, an American got lucky or the weather itself interfered, the United States certainly has some colorful stories that cannot be read as anything less than divine intervention.

WHAT DOES GOD DO: HE RESPONDS TO OBEDIENCE

The early church knew their charge and mandate. To preach the good news of Jesus Christ. When told to stop, they prayed for the power to GO! The place was shaken, the Holy Spirit empowered them and they were enabled to speak the Word boldly

Go: the smallest of words, the biggest of meanings. It may be one of God’s favorite words. Sometimes life is calm. Secure. Peaceful. Nothing scary, each day much like the one before. That’s usually when God shows up. That’s usually when God says, “Go.”

Sometimes God calls dramatically, in miracle and flame. Sometimes He calls subtly, in stillness and whisper, so soft we won’t hear if we aren’t listening. Sometimes through His Word, sometimes through a friend, sometimes through life events.

However He speaks, God calls to us all. We are called for different roles, in different ways, at different points in our lives: one season holds one purpose, the next holds another. We are God’s people, His instruments, and He wants to use us. As Romans 8:28 puts it, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” According to His purpose. God has plans for each of us. He has work for us to do, work He prepared a long time ago, work He has equipped us to accomplish. Ephesians 2:10 reminds us, “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

The mandate still remains unchanged for the church. We must collectively come together and rise up through the power of the Holy Spirit and take forth the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations.

WHAT CAN GOD DO:   HE CAN BIRTH REVIVAL OUT OF THE ENEMY’S ATTACK

This persecution against the early church brought the church together in powerful prayer and precipitated another outpouring on the early church. It’s said that what Satan weaves God reweaves.

Joseph, Son of Jacob, Graduated with honors from the University of Hard Knocks. He went on to become the Director of Global Effort to Save Humanity. How? How did he flourish in the midst of tragedy? We don’t have to speculate. Some twenty years later after his brothers sold him into slavery the roles were reversed, Joseph as the strong one and his brothers the weak ones. They came to him in dread. They feared he would settle the score and throw them into a pit of his own making. But Joseph didn’t. And in his explanation in Genesis 50:20 we find his inspiration, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”

We all have heard of Jim Elliott and Nate Saint and their companions who were martyred in the 1950’s.  But through their suffering the Gospel spread among the Auca Indians in South America. Similar stories could be repeated throughout the centuries and around the world.

Through the power of the risen Christ, we too can continue the destruction of the works of the devil. If God be for us, who can be against us? 1 John 3:8 says, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

Finally, WHAT CAN GOD DO: GOD CAN HEAL THIS NATION.

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 God tells us, “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” 

To bring real revival to our nation, we as Americans need to humble ourselves, acknowledge God in all our ways, continually be in prayer and wholeheartedly serve the one true God.

You Must Be Born Again

Part 2 What Happens At The New Birth?

John 3,  Ezekiel 36:24–28

Pastor Barry Kerner

Today we complete last week’s message on what happens in the new birth. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:7, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” And in verse 3, he told Nicodemus — and us — that our eternal lives depend on being born again. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” So we are not dealing with something marginal or optional or cosmetic in the Christian life. The new birth is not like the makeup that morticians use to try to make corpses look more like they are alive. The new birth is the creation of a new spiritual life, not the imitation of life.

We began to answer the question What happens in the new birth? last time with two statements. First, what happens in the new birth is not getting new religion but getting new life, and second, what happens in the new birth is not merely affirming the supernatural in Jesus, but experiencing the supernatural in ourselves.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee and had lots of religion. But he had no spiritual life. And he saw the supernatural work of God in Jesus, but he didn’t experience the supernatural work of God in himself. So putting our two points together from last time, what Nicodemus needed, Jesus said, was new spiritual life imparted supernaturally through the Holy Spirit. What makes the new life spiritual and what makes it supernatural is that it is the work of God the Spirit. It is something above the natural life of our physical hearts and brains.

In verse 6, Jesus says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The flesh does have a kind of life. Every human being is living flesh. But not every human being is living spirit. To be a living spirit, or to have spiritual life, Jesus says, we must be “born of the Spirit.” Flesh gives rise to one kind of life. The Spirit gives rise to another kind of life. If we don’t have this second kind, we will not see the kingdom of God.

Then as we closed last time, we noticed two very important things. We saw that there is a relationship of the new birth to Jesus and the relationship of the new birth to faith. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  In 1 John 5:11-12 the apostle John said, “God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” So on the one hand, the new life we need is “in the Son” — Jesus is that life. If you have him, you have new spiritual, eternal life. And on the other hand, in John 6:63, Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” John 3:5 tells us that unless you are born of the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God.

So we have life by being connected with the Son of God who is our life, and we have that life by the work of the Spirit. We concluded, therefore, that the work of the Spirit in regeneration is to impart new life to us by uniting us to Christ. The way John Calvin says it is: “The Holy Spirit is the bond by which Christ effectually unites us to himself” (Institutes, 3.1.1).

And then we made the connection to faith like this. John 20:31 says, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” And 1 John 5:4 says, “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.” Being born of God is the key to victory. Our faith is the key to victory. Faith is the way we experience being born of God. To sum up the last message, in the new birth, the Holy Spirit supernaturally gives us new spiritual life by connecting us with Jesus Christ through faith.

This brings us now to the third way of describing what happens in the new birth. What happens in the new birth is not the improvement of your old human nature but the creation of a new human nature — a nature that is really you, and is forgiven and cleansed; and a nature that is really new, and is being formed in you by the indwelling Spirit of God.

In John 3:5, Jesus says to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” What does Jesus mean by the two terms “by water and the Spirit”? Some denominations believe that this is a reference to water baptism as the way the Spirit unites us to Christ. For example, one website explains it like this:

Holy Baptism is the basis of the whole Christian life, the gateway to life in the Spirit and the door which gives access to the other sacraments. Through Baptism we are freed from sin and reborn as sons of God; we become members of Christ, are incorporated into the Church and made sharers in her mission: “Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration through water in the word.” Millions of people have been taught that their baptism caused them to be born again. If this is not true, it is a great and global tragedy. And I do not believe it is true. So what then does Jesus mean?

Here are several reasons why I think the reference to water here is not a reference to Christian baptism. Then we will see where the context leads.

First, there Is no mention of baptism in the rest of the chapter. If this were a reference to Christian baptism and it were as essential for new birth as some say it is, it seems strange that it drops out of what Jesus says in this chapter in telling us how to have eternal life. In verse 15 Jesus says,  “Whoever believes in him may have eternal life.” In verse 16: he says, “Whoever believes in him [will] not perish but have eternal life.” And, in verse 18, “Whoever believes in him is not condemned.” It would seem strange, if baptism were that essential, it would not be mentioned along with faith.

Second, the analogy with the wind in verse 8 would seem strange if being born again were so firmly attached to water baptism. Jesus says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its 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.” This seems to say that God is as free as the wind in causing regeneration. But if it happened every time a baby is sprinkled, that would not seem to be true. In that case the wind, would be very confined by the sacrament.

Third, if Jesus is referring to Christian baptism, it seems strange that he would say to Nicodemus, the Pharisee in verse 10, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” That makes sense if Jesus is referring to something taught in the Old Testament. But if he is referring to a baptism that will come later and get its meaning from the life and death of Jesus, it doesn’t seem like he would have scolded Nicodemus that a teacher in Israel does not understand what he is saying.

Finally, that same statement in verse 10 sends us back to the Old Testament for some background, and what we find is that water and spirit are closely linked in the New Covenant promises, especially in Ezekiel 36. So let’s go there together. This text is the basis for the rest of this message.

Ezekiel is prophesying what God will do for his people when he brings them back from exile in Babylon. The implications are much larger than just for the people of Israel, because Jesus claims to secure the New Covenant by his blood for all who will trust in him (Luke 22:20). And this is one version of the New Covenant promises like the one in Jeremiah 31:31–34. Let’s read it together. Ezekiel 36:24–28.

“I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land. 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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.”

I think this is the passage that gives rise to Jesus words, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”  In verse 28 Jesus says, “You shall be my people, and I will be your God.”  Who was he talking to? To the ones to whom he says, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness.” And, to the ones to whom he says, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”

In other words, the ones who will enter the kingdom are those who have a newness that involves a cleansing of the old and a creation of the new. So I conclude that “water and Spirit” refer to two aspects of our newness when we are born again. And the reason both are important is this: when we say that a new spirit, or a new heart, is given to us, we don’t mean that we cease to be the human being that we have always been.

I was the individual human being Barry Kerner before I was born again, and I am the individual human being Barry Kerner after I was born again. There is a continuity. That’s why there has to be cleansing. If the old human being, Barry Kerner, were completely obliterated, the whole concept of forgiveness and cleansing would be irrelevant. There would be nothing leftover from the past to forgive or cleanse.

We know that the Bible tells us that our old self was crucified (Romans 6:6), and that we have died with Christ (Colossians 3:3), and we are to “consider ourselves dead” (Romans 6:11), and “put off the old self” (Ephesians 4:22). But none of that means the same human being is not in view throughout life. It means that there was an old nature, an old character, or principle, that needs to be done away with.

So the way to think about your new heart, new spirit, new nature is that it is still you and so needs to be forgiven and cleansed — that’s the point of the referring to water. My guilt must be washed away. Cleansing with water is a picture of that. Jeremiah 33:8 puts it like this: “I will cleanse them from all the guilt of their sin against me, and I will forgive all the guilt of their sin and rebellion against me.” So the person that we are — that continues to exist — must be forgiven, and the guilt washed away.

But forgiveness and cleansing is not enough. I need to be new. I need to be transformed. I need life. I need a new way of seeing and thinking and valuing. That’s why Ezekiel speaks of a new heart and a new spirit in verse 26 and 27: “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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Here’s the way I understand those verses: To be sure, the heart of stone means the dead heart that was unfeeling and unresponsive to spiritual reality. It could respond with passion and desire to lots of things. But it was a stone toward the spiritual truth and beauty of Jesus Christ and the glory of God and the path of holiness. That is what has to change if we are to see the kingdom of God.

So in the new birth, God takes out the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. The word flesh doesn’t mean “merely human” like it does in John 3:6. It means soft and living and responsive and feeling, instead of being a lifeless stone. In the new birth, our dead, stony boredom with Christ is replaced by a heart that feels or spiritually senses the worth of Jesus.

Then when Ezekiel says in verses 26 and 27, “a new spirit I will put within you. . . . And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes,” He means that in the new birth, God puts a living, supernatural, spiritual life in our heart, and that new life — that new spirit — is the working of the Holy Spirit himself giving shape and character to our new heart.

So now let’s step back and sum up these last two weeks. What happens in the new birth? In the new birth, the Holy Spirit supernaturally gives us new spiritual life by connecting us with Jesus Christ through faith. Or, to say it another way, the Spirit unites us to Christ where there is cleansing for our sins, and he replaces our hard, unresponsive heart with a soft heart that treasures Jesus above all things and is being transformed by the presence of the Spirit into the kind of heart that loves to do the will of God.

Since the way you experience all of this is through faith, I invite you now, in the name of Jesus and by the power of his Spirit, to receive him as the sin-forgiving, transforming Treasure of your life.

2 Corinthians 5:17 tells us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

There is a certain truth about the new creation in Christ which, as Christians, we must be conscious of and live by. These are not promises but they are the truths in the word of God which are realities. If you’ve received Christ into your life, you’ve become new. The Bible says “if any man is in Christ, he ‘is’ a new creation.” That passage is talking of the “present” not “later,” it means you become a new creation immediately.

Another truth is that the word of God is an agent of cleansing, it purifies and makes all things new. John 15:3 says “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” By his words, we are made clean from all that might have stained us which includes our terrible past. We should then not even think of the old but of the present because Christ has made us new and that alone should give us joy. Now that we are a new creation, we are in Christ.  And, if we are in Christ, that which is true of Jesus Christ is true of us as well.

Today, think of yourself as a new creation and never let your past slow you down but let Christ move you forward and faster.

Let us pray.

Father, your Word says, “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20) Because Christ lives in us, we can live our lives differently as we put our faith in Jesus and in His power to work in us and through us. Jesus, thank you for giving your life for us so that we are new creations in Christ!  Continue to speak to our hearts through your Word today and help us live like new creations in Christ. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

 Father’s Day 2021

Colossians 3:18-20

Pastor Barry Kerner

In honor of Father’s everywhere we’ll be taking a break from the series, we recently began, You Must Be Born Again. We’ll continue with that series of messages next week.

It’s good to be a man, isn’t it, men? “Why?” you women may be asking?

1: Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.

2: A 5-day vacation only requires one suitcase.

3: When clicking through the channels on Netflix, you don’t have to stop at every romance movie.

4: Gray hair and wrinkles only add character to men.

5: If another guy shows up at the party in the same outfit, you just might become lifelong buddies.

Those are some reasons it’s good to be a man!

How many know on which day of the year are the most phone calls are made? That’s right, Mother’s Day. On mothers day everyone wants to call home and talk to mom. Guess what happens on Father’s Day? The most collect Calls. That’s ok though. Dads like to be needed… It’s all good.

Father’s Day just doesn’t seem to have a very high priority compared to other holidays, does it? I went to the post office the other day, to deliver a package. When I got up to the counter I asked the lady there, “So, are you ready for Father’s Day?” She gave me a sideways glance and said, “Sure, I guess…” I had to laugh when I left the post office because it was obvious she didn’t consider Father’s Day to be a very big deal. Most people don’t.

In contrast, Mother’s Day is a huge deal. Forget Mother’s Day and you’ll be in the dog house till Father’s Day. Mothers are highly esteemed on Mother’s Day. As a young boy growing up in church, I remember every Mother’s Day was a salute to Mothers. But on Father’s Day, all the preacher ever did was tell the dad’s what they should be doing right instead of what they have been doing right. It was more like a boot camp than a day to honor dads.

So today, dads, this one’s for you… Father’s hold a very special place in society… A much higher place than they are given credit for today. For instance, how many of you have seen a commercial that actually makes dads look intelligent lately? Most commercials cast fathers as the family idiot, who can’t figure out how to take care of the kids alone, how to run a load of laundry or clean the toilets without specific instructions from mom.

American society seems to see fathers as expendable parts of the family unit. In courtrooms, divorced dads hardly have a fighting chance of obtaining custody of their kids, or even being allowed to be a significant part of their kid’s lives, much less have the opportunity to be the spiritual leader of their household.

Sadly, many men today also neglect to see the importance of their role as a father themselves, which is why the term “dead-beat dad” was originally coined. As a result, their kids are growing up in unbalanced and dysfunctional households. In fact 39.6 % of the children in America are going to bed every night without their biological father in the home.

Fathers need to be reinstated to the level of importance that God intended for them! In fact, I’ve seen very strong evidence which points to the fact that the reason American morality and spiritual integrity is at such an all time low is because of the declining value placed on the role of the father in today’s society. When dad is undervalued, so is a right relationship with Abba, our Father in Heaven.

Today, my goal is not to remind our dads of their duties and responsibilities so much as to encourage and remind us all of their importance: the respect and the dignity of the role of a father. Fathers play an extremely important and vital role in our families and in our nation today.

In Colossians chapter 3, the Bible introduces a hierarchical model of authority in the family. Colossians 3:18-20 reads, “Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord.”

So, in terms of authority, the father is deemed the head of his household, and in 1 Timothy 3:12, he is urged to manage his children and his household in a respectable manner. So the father is charged with the responsibility of looking after the best interests of his family: financially, spiritually and socially.

When a man becomes a father, he isn’t given some sort of rule book on how to conduct himself. No one tells a man how to manage his household. It is something he picks up from a few very important sources: First, from the way his own father treated him: how he grew up as a child and interacted with his dad, Second from what he learns from his relationship with God and by the Word of God.

I can remember the sense of strength and protection my father exuded. He was always looking after his family. And while he never had the same tenderness that mom had, he showed his love equally as powerfully to us kids. People so often have the perception that dads don’t love their kids as much as mothers, because they aren’t as emotional or endearing, but fathers have the capacity to love just as much as any other spiritual being. It’s just expressed in different ways.

Instead of a tender hug fathers give strong bear hugs, it always feels good to be loved by dad. Dads are just designed by God to express their love in different ways. They express their love when they guard their family and provide good things to their wife and kids.

When I and my brothers were younger we were in the Boy Scouts. My father took us to every meeting and event and was constantly volunteering. He took time off to spend time with us. That sacrifice was an expression of his fatherly love. He was always working with his hands and showed us many things that taught us discipline and developed character in us. So good men learn how to be good dads from healthy father-son relationships.

Since almost 40% of kids grow up without dad at home, we know there has to be another source of example for the developing dad, and that’s the example we have in Jesus Christ. The best dads take their example from Jesus Christ and pass the legacy of the Lord on to their family. The legacy of Christ’s love is the greatest gift a father can give, and to be like Jesus in the way we manage our household is the greatest expression of love a dad can give to his family.

Some of the greatest experiences in my life were when I first saw my children – two for for the first time in the delivery room and three when we met for the first time during the adoption process. Immediately, I knew that I loved them. No experience or reciprocation earned my love. It was just there unconditionally. Our heavenly Father also loves us by Adoption and cherishes his children as he gazes upon them.

That reminds me of a story. One night a wife found her husband standing over their newborn baby’s crib. Silently she watched him. As he stood looking down at the sleeping infant, she saw on his face a mixture of emotions: disbelief, doubt, delight, amazement, enchantment, skepticism. He would stand back, shake his head and say, “Amazing,” while smiling from ear to ear.

Touched by his unusual display and the deep emotions it aroused, her eyes glistened as she slipped her arms around him. “A penny for your thoughts,” she whispered in his ear.

“Isn’t it amazing!” he replied. “When you take the time and really look close, how can anyone make a crib like that for only $49.99!”

When Peter asked the Lord how they were going to pay their taxes, Jesus told him to take a coin from the fish’s mouth, this teaches His people that our Father God is a God of provision. When He fed the multitude with a few loaves of bread and a few fish, He provided the example of a father who provides all the needs of His family, and He commands dads today to do the same. 1 Timothy 5:8 the Apostle Paul told Timothy, “If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

In the same way, dads have the awesome responsibility of providing for their family. Our egos are wrapped up in our employment. We’re ashamed if we are unemployed. The brunt of the responsibility to provide for the welfare of a family unit rests on the shoulders of the husband.

Dads are always striving to maintain a balance of providing for their family and spending quality time with the family. Scripture teaches us that there has to be balance in our lives. Because men are hard wired with the desire to provide for their family and make a good home for their children, there’s a constant struggle to maintain a balance between the giving of our time and the giving of our things.

A man constantly has to look to God for direction and example on how to manage his household. God’s example is that He always provided for His children, but He never replaces the value of spending quality time with His children by giving them things to keep them busy. So, while the provision is there in abundance, our Father God always places the greater emphasis on the time we spend together with Him. In the same way, a father’s duty to provide for his family shouldn’t overshadow the importance of spending quality time with them either.

A father also expresses his love though discipline. When Jesus rebuked Peter saying, “Satan, get thee behind me.” He portrayed the power of love through the act of discipline, not wanting Peter to be lost in the old way of thinking. Discipline is difficult, and it is often times received by our children as a bad thing, but it is a primary fruit of fatherly love. Dad has to discipline if he loves his children. Proverbs 3:11-12 tells us, “My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” A dad has to discipline because he wants the best for his children. The discipline of a father sets the whole course of his families lives on fire. Children raised in the discipline of a strong and loving father have greater discipline as adults, and disciplined adults make greater contributors to society.

A young man was making poor grades in school, particularly in math. His parents tried various things, none of which seemed to produce the desired improvement. Finally, they decided to enroll him in a private Catholic school. At the end of the first grading period, the young man came home and proudly presented his report card to his parents. They were shocked to find that all of his grades had improved significantly. Most noticeably, he had received his first-ever “A” in math.

His parents were overjoyed and began to question him to determine what it was that had finally produced the improvement they had sought. “Was it the non-traditional teaching methods in the private school?” No. “Was it the smaller class sizes and more individual attention?” No. “Well, what WAS it then that caused such a big turn around?” they asked. “Well,” the son replied, “when I walked into that school on the first day and the first thing I saw was that man nailed to that plus sign, I KNEW I’d better take math seriously here.”

Discipline is the act of a father urging his kids to live the right way, for the development and growth of his family. In the movie, “Remember the Titans,” the coach pushed those students to the brink of their abilities. Some accused him of trying to ruin them and break their spirits. But by pushing them – he made them stronger. It prepared them for a difficult season of football – and in the end they went undefeated and won the championship because of their discipline. If he hadn’t pushed them, they never would have pushed themselves. In the same way, a family is made by a father’s discipline. And so, like a coach that pushes his players – the father disciplines and urges his children, to make them stronger.

A dad expresses his love through protection. A dad places himself in the way of trouble to protect his family. Jesus applied the example of the greatest love possible when He laid down His life to save us, His people. In the same way, a father is charged with the duty of laying down his life, his desires, his personal interests for the sake of his family. A father puts his children’s interests before his own, and is able to partake in whatever reward might come through their lives because of the investments and sacrifices he made to help them. Dads are the first line of defense for their family, and are often the first area where Satan attacks, because the enemy knows if you can take the leader out, his subjects are soon to follow.

But the primary gift a father gives his children, the greatest legacy a dad leaves behind is the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. It’s true, when a parent dies, their children expect to receive an inheritance. Sometimes that inheritance involves riches and sometimes it doesn’t. But there is no greater inheritance than the legacy a father leaves concerning eternal salvation. Ephesians 6:4 tells fathers, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” A dad who loves his family will do his best to lead them in the way of the Lord.

1Thessalonians 2:11-13 reminds us, “…as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” and Mark 8:36 asks us, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”

Dads are extremely important people in our lives. We’re charged with the duties of protecting, providing and interceding for our family’s sake. We have the power to shape our families and our societies by the ways we live every day. We are the first line of defense for our families and are commissioned by God to deliver the Good News of the Gospel message to our families, not just with words, but in the way we live every day… Not just by the way we worship and pray on Sundays, but by the way we worship and praise God every day of our lives.

Before we pray for our fathers I’d like to close with a precious dad moment.

As ham sandwiches go, it was perfection. A thick slab of ham, a fresh bun, crisp lettuce and plenty of expensive, light brown, gourmet mustard. The corners of the father’s jaw were aching in anticipation. He carried it to the picnic table in his backyard and picked it up with both hands. He was just about to take his first bite when when he was stopped by his wife. “Hold Johnny, (their six-week-old son), while I get my sandwich,” she said.

The father balanced the baby between his left elbow and shoulder and was reaching again for the ham sandwich when he noticed a streak of mustard on his fingers. He loved mustard and had no napkin so he just licked it off. It was NOT mustard. No man ever put a baby down faster. It was the first and only time he sprinted with his tongue hanging out. With a wet washcloth in each hand he scrubbed his tongue. Later his wife joked, “Now you know why they call that mustard ’Gray Poupon.’”

If you are a godly father, you know but perhaps cannot explain the profound love you have for your children. It is just there. And you know that you would go to great lengths to for them. The same is true with God our Father. He sent the Son into the world to save us from sin, death, and Satan. He gave himself for us. And that’s a father’s love.

Let us pray for our fathers.

Loving God, look gently upon fathers of newborn and young children, give them energy, patience and happiness in these fleeting days of long nights, diapers too numerous to count and loading cars with strollers.

Bless dads, who are raising school aged children and teenagers, dads who coach teams and stay up late helping with homework, show them joy in in the moments that seem both hard and wonderful all at the same time.

Bless dads who watch their adult children live their own lives; give these fathers perspective and wisdom.

Healing God, Comfort all people who mourn the absence of their father today from death or illness or because of broken relationships. Comfort those who had hoped to be fathers but have been unable to do so and embrace those who long to be dads.

Ever present God, hold up those fathers who mourn the loss of their own children or grieve over their broken relationships with their children.

Beloved Jesus,Son of God, help us to recognize all the men who have guided us and loved us like fathers, men who send a Light forth as an example of the Light you shine upon all of your beloved children.

Bless us and keep us today in Your light. In your name we pray. Amen.

You Must Be Born Again

Part 1 What Happens At The New Birth?

John 3

Pastor Barry Kerner

We have begun a series of messages on the new birth titled You Must Be Born Again. Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He was speaking to all of us when he said that. Nicodemus was not a special case. You and I must be born again, or we will not see the kingdom of God. That means we will not be saved; we will not be part of God’s family, and not go to heaven, but instead we will go to hell.

Nicodemus was one of the Pharisees, the most religious Jewish leaders. Jesus said to them in Matthew 23:15-33, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. . . . You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

The new birth is not marginal, it is central to God’s salvation plan.. Eternity hangs in the balance when we are talking about the new birth. Without a doubt, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

I want you to know that the new birth is unsettling. In the first message last week we focused on the reasons for this series and the kinds of questions we would be asking. Today’s question is: What happens in the new birth? Before I try to answer that question, let me mention a very earnest concern that I have about the way these messages will be heard. I am aware that this series of messages will be unsettling to many of you — just like the words of Jesus are unsettling to us again and again if we take them seriously. There are at least three reasons for this.

First, our hopeless condition is unsettling. Jesus’s teaching about the new birth confronts us with our hopeless spiritual, moral and legal condition apart from God’s regenerating grace. Before the new birth happens to us, we are spiritually dead. We are morally selfish and rebellious. And we are legally guilty before God’s law and under his wrath. When Jesus tells us that we must be born again he is telling us that our present condition is hopelessly unresponsive, corrupt, and guilty. Apart from amazing grace in our lives, we don’t like to hear that about ourselves. So it is unsettling when Jesus tells us that we must be born again.

Second, we cannot ourselves cause the new birth. Teaching about the new birth is unsettling because it refers to something that is done to us, not something we do. John 1:13 emphasizes this when it says, the children of God are those “who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” 1 Peter 1:3 stresses the same thing, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.”

We do not cause the new birth. God causes the new birth. Any good thing that we do is a result of the new birth, not a cause of the new birth. This means that the new birth is taken out of our hands. It is not in our control. And so it confronts us with our helplessness and our absolute dependence on someone – God. This is unsettling. We are told that we won’t see the kingdom of God if we’re not born again. And we’re told that we can’t cause ourselves to be born again. This is unsettling.

Third, the reason the new birth is unsettling is it is the will of God. Apart from God, we are spiritually dead in our selfishness and rebellion. Ephesians 2:3 tells us we are by nature children of wrath. 2 Corinthians 4:4 lets us know that our rebellion is so deep that we cannot detect or desire the glory of Christ in the gospel. Therefore, if we are going to be born again, it will rely decisively and ultimately on God the Holy Spirit. His decision to make us alive will not be a response to what we as spiritual corpses do, but what we do will be a response to his making us alive. For most people, at least at first, this is unsettling.

So, as I begin this series, I am aware of how unsettling this teaching on the new birth may be to you. And I am very hopeful that he will do what he says in Ephesians 2:4–5, “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.” God loves to magnify the riches of his life-giving grace where Christ is lifted up in truth. My hope is that this series will not just unsettle but lead to the salvation of some.

Let’s turn now to the question: What happens in the new birth? I will try to put the answer in three statements. The first two we will deal with today, and the third we will deal with  next week. (1) What happens in the new birth is not getting new religion but getting new life. (2) What happens in the new birth is not merely affirming the supernatural in Jesus but experiencing the supernatural in yourself. (3) What happens in the new birth is not the improvement of your old human nature but the creation of a new human nature — a nature that is really you, and is forgiven and cleansed; and a nature that is really new, and is being formed by the indwelling Spirit of God. Let’s take those one at a time.

First, being born again is a new life not a new religion What happens in the new birth is not getting new religion but getting new life. Read with me John 3:1–3: 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 are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

John makes sure that we know that Nicodemus is a Pharisee and a ruler of the Jews. The Pharisees were the most rigorously religious of all the Jewish groups. To this one, Jesus says in verse 3, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And even more personally in verse 7 he says, “You must be born again.” So one of John’s points is: All of Nicodemus’s religion, all of his amazing Pharisaic study and discipline and law-keeping, cannot replace the need for the new birth. In fact, they may well make more obvious the need for the new birth.

What Nicodemus needs, and what you and I need, is not religion but life. The point of referring to new birth is that birth brings a new life into the world. In one sense, of course, Nicodemus is alive. He is breathing, thinking, feeling, acting. He is human, created in God’s image. But evidently, Jesus thinks he’s dead. There is no spiritual life in Nicodemus. Spiritually, he is unborn. He needs life — not more religious activities or more religious zeal. He has plenty of that.

You recall what Jesus said in Luke 9:60 to the man who wanted to put off following Jesus so he could bury his father? Jesus said, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” That means there are physically dead people who need burying. And, there are spiritually dead people who can bury them. In other words, Jesus thought in terms of people who walk around with much apparent life, and are dead. In his parable about the prodigal son in Luke 15:24, the Father says, “This my son was dead, and is alive again.”

Nicodemus did not need religion; he needed life — spiritual life. What happens in the new birth is that life comes into being that was not there before. New life happens at the new birth. This is not religious activity or discipline or decision. This is the coming into being of life. That’s the first way of describing what happens in the new birth.

Second, you experience the supernatural not just affirm it. What happens in the new birth is not merely affirming the supernatural in Jesus but experiencing the supernatural in yourself. In verse 2, Nicodemus says, “Rabbi, 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.” In other words, Nicodemus sees in Jesus a genuine divine activity. He admits that Jesus is from God. Jesus does the works of God. To this, Jesus does not respond by saying, “I wish everyone in Palestine could see the truth that you see about me.” Instead, he says, “You must be born again or you will never see the kingdom of God.”

Seeing signs and wonders, and being amazed at them, and giving the miracle worker credit for them that he is from God, saves nobody. This is one of the great dangers of signs and wonders: You don’t need a new heart to be amazed at them. The old, fallen human nature is all that’s needed to be amazed at signs and wonders. And the old, fallen human nature is willing to say that the miracle worker is from God. We know from Mark 1:24 that the devil himself knows that Jesus is the Son of God and works miracles. No, Jesus tells Nicodemus, seeing me as a miracle worker sent from God is not the key to the kingdom of God. But, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

In other words, what matters is not merely affirming the supernatural in Jesus but experiencing the supernatural in yourself. The new birth is supernatural, not natural. It cannot be accounted by things that are already found in this world. Verse 6 emphasizes the supernatural nature of the new birth: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The flesh is what we are naturally. The Spirit of God is the supernatural Person who brings about the new birth.

Jesus says this again in verse 8: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its 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.” The Spirit is not a part of this natural world. He is above nature. He is supernatural. Indeed, he is God. He is the immediate cause of the new birth.

So Nicodemus, Jesus says, what happens in the new birth is not merely affirming the supernatural in me, but experiencing the supernatural in yourself. You must be born again. And not in any metaphorical natural way, but in a supernatural way. God the Holy Spirit must come upon you and bring new life into existence.

We will look next time at the words in verse 5: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Next week we’ll  examine what water and Spirit refer to in that verse? As well as how that helps us to understand what is happening in the new birth?

Today I want to close by making a crucial connection between being born again by the Spirit and having eternal life through faith in Jesus. What we have seen so far is that what happens in the new birth is a supernatural work by the Holy Spirit to bring spiritual life into being where it did not exist. Jesus says it again in John 6:63: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.”

But the Gospel of John makes something else clear as well: Jesus is the life that the Holy Spirit gives. Or we could say: the spiritual life that he gives, he only gives in connection with Jesus. Union with Jesus is where we experience supernatural, spiritual life. Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In John 6:35, he said, “I am the bread of life.” And in John 20:31, John says, “These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

There is no life apart from Jesus. There is no spiritual life — no eternal life — apart from connection with Jesus and belief in Jesus. We will have lots more to say about the relationship between the new birth and faith in Jesus. But let’s put it this way for now: In the new birth, the Holy Spirit unites us to Christ in a living union. Christ is life. Christ is the vine where life flows. From John 15:1-11 we learn that we are the branches of that vine.

What happens in the new birth is the supernatural creation of new spiritual life, and it is created through union with Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit brings us into vital connection with Christ who is the way, the truth, and life. That is the objective reality of what happens in the new birth.

And from our side — the way we experience this — is that faith in Jesus is awakened in our hearts. Spiritual life and faith in Jesus come into being together. The new life makes the faith possible, and since spiritual life always awakens faith and expresses itself in faith, there is no life without faith in Jesus. Therefore, we should never separate the new birth from faith in Jesus. From God’s side, we are united to Christ in the new birth. That’s what the Holy Spirit does. From our side, we experience this union by faith in Jesus.

We must never separate the new birth and faith in Jesus Christ. Listen to how John puts them together in 1 John 5:4: “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.” Born of God is the the key to victory. Faith initiates the key to victory because faith is the way we experience being born of God.

Or listen to how John says it in 1 John 5:11–12: “This is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” Therefore, when Jesus says, in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all,” and when he says, “You must be born of the Spirit” in order to have life, he means this: in the new birth, the Holy Spirit supernaturally gives us new spiritual life by connecting us with Jesus Christ through faith, for Jesus is life.

So I’ll close with this, never separate these two sayings of Jesus in John 3: “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (verse 3) and “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life” (verse 36).

You Must Be Born Again

John 3:1-18

Pastor Barry Kerner

Billy Graham tells of a time early in his ministry when he arrived in a small town to preach at a meeting. He had arrived a little bit early to finish writing a letter for back home. As he finished the letter, he asked a young boy standing on the sidewalk for directions to the town post office. When the boy had given him the directions, Mr. Graham thanked him and said, “If you will come to the Baptist church this evening, you can hear me tell everyone how to get to heaven.” “I don’t think I will be there.” The little boy replied, “You don’t even know your way to the post office, how could you know how to get to heaven.”

If your Bibles are open to John 3, let’s read verses 1 through 18.

 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

9 “How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. 10 “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? 11 Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. 12 I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? 13 No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. 14 Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15 that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

In John 3:7 Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again.”

What does “being born again” mean? Are you born again? Can you understand or explain how to be born again? If someone should ask you, “What must I do to get to heaven?”, what would you tell them? Would you tell them to stop lying, to stop drinking, to stop smoking, to stop stealing, to stop cursing? Many people speak of a new birth without any definite idea of just what the new birth is. As a result, they are never sure whether they themselves have been born again or not.

The Barna Group is an organization that specializes in religious research and statistics. One of their reports is titled, “Born Again Christians Just As Likely to Divorce As Are Non-Christians.” The same kind of statistics are given by Ron Sider in his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience: Why Are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World?

I want to focus on the term the Barna Group uses, “born again.” The Barna Group, in particular, uses it in reporting their research. Sider uses the term, “evangelicals” when referring to those in the church who call themselves, “born again.”

Research shows that only 9% of evangelicals regularly give to support their church. 60% of those who identify as Christians have been divorced. Of 12,000 teenagers who took the pledge to wait for marriage, 80% had sex outside marriage in the next 7 years. 26% of traditional evangelicals do not think premarital sex is wrong. 44% of those in the church support gay marriage. White evangelicals are more likely than Catholics and mainline Protestants to object to having black neighbors. In other words, the evangelical church as a whole in America is apparently quite like the world. It goes to church on Sunday and has a veneer of religion, but its religion is basically an add-on to the same way of life the world lives, not a radically transforming power.

Now I want to make it clear that when the Barna Group uses term “born again” to describe American church-goers whose lives are indistinguishable from the world, and who sin as much as the world, and sacrifice for others as little as the world, and embrace injustice as readily as the world, and covet things as greedily as the world, and enjoy God-ignoring entertainment as enthusiastically as the world — when the term “born again” is used to describe these professing Christians, the Barna Group is making a profound mistake.

It is using the biblical term “born again” in a way that would make it unrecognizable by Jesus and the biblical writers. Here is the way the researchers defined “born again” in their research: “Born again Christians” were defined in these surveys as people who said they have made “a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today” and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.

In other words, in this research the term “born again” refers to people who say things. They say, “I have a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s important to me.” They say, “I believe that I will go to heaven when I die. I have confessed my sins and accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.” Then the Barna Group takes them at their word, ascribes to them the infinitely important reality of the new birth, and then blasphemes that precious biblical reality by saying that regenerate hearts have no more victory over sin than unregenerate hearts.

The New Testament Moves the Opposite Direction. I’m not saying the Barna Group’s research is wrong. It appears to be appallingly right. I am not saying that the church is not as worldly as they say it is. I am saying that the writers of the New Testament think in exactly the opposite direction about being born again. Instead of moving from a profession of faith, to the label “born again,” to the worldliness of these so-called born again people, to the conclusion that the new birth does not radically change people, the New Testament moves the other direction. It moves from the absolute certainty that the new birth radically changes people, to the observation that many professing Christians are indeed, as the Barna Group says, not radically changed, to the conclusion that they are not born again.

 For example, one of the main points of the first epistle of John is to drive home this very truth that Christians who are truly “born again” have radically changed lives.

• 1 John 2:29: “If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.”
• 1 John 3:9: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.”
• 1 John 4:7: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”
• 1 John 5:4: “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.”
• 1 John 5:18: “We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him.”

We will explore texts like these in the weeks to come as this series develops. There are many questions to answer and we will distance ourselves plainly from perfectionism and deal realistically with the failures of genuine Christians. The Barna Group claims that born-again people are morally indistinguishable from the world? The Bible is profoundly aware of such people in the church. That is one reason why 1 John was written. But instead of following the Barna Group, the Bible says that the research is not finding that born-again people are permeated with worldliness; the research is finding that the church is permeated by people who are not born again.

Today’s message will be an introductory overview of where we are going and why. You can already see one of the reasons I want to focus on this issue. The term “born again” is desecrated when it is used the way the Barna Group uses it. And, of course, that kind of misuse of the biblical term is not the only kind. The term in our day simply means that someone or something got a new lease on life.

The term, “born again is used for businesses. The internet says that Cisco Systems, the communications company, has been born again, and the Green Movement has been born again, the Davie Shipyard in Montreal has been born again, the west end in Boston has been born again, Kosher foods for Orthodox Jews have been born again. The list goes on for businesses that have remade themselves into something new. So it’s not surprising that we have to be careful when we read that forty-five percent of Americans say they have been religiously “born again.”

This term “born again” is very precious and very crucial in the Bible. So I hope to make sure that we know what God intends when the Bible uses this language. What does being born again mean?

First, I want you to learn that the term, “born again” speaks of a regeneration.

Today we begin a series of messages about the new birth. What does the Bible teach about being born again? Another word for the event of being born again is “regeneration.” It is helpful to use that word from time to time. Would you be willing to add it to your vocabulary?  Did you know that the word ‘regenerate’ is how you describe somebody who is born again? You say, ‘That person is regenerate.’ That means he’s born again”?

Second,  I want you to know what happened to you when you were born again.

Another reason I am eager to focus on the new birth is to help you know what really happened to you when you were born again. It is far more glorious than you think it is. It is also more glorious than I think it is. It is wonderful beyond all human comprehension. But that mystery is not because there is little about it in the Bible. There is much about it in the Bible. It’s because when all is comprehended there is still more. So I hope that in the next few weeks you’ll come to know more and to know better what happened to you when you were born again.

Third, I want to help people who are not “born again” to be “born again”

Another reason for this series is that there are others that I want to help be born again. I want to show them what must happen to them. And I, with your prayers, would like to be a means of others being born again. The new birth, we will see, is not a work of man. You don’t make the new birth happen, and I don’t make the new birth happen. God makes it happen. It happens to us, not by us.

Being born again always happens through the Gospel. Listen to 1 Peter 1:23, 25: “Since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God. . . . And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” So even though God is the one who begets his children, the seed by which he does it is the word of God, the gospel that we preach. So pray with me that one of the great effects of this series will be that miracle. And bring your friends and family who need to hear about the necessity of the new birth. I will try to explain it clearly and show it from the Bible so people can see it for themselves.

And the reason I want you to know what happened to you in your new birth and others to know what must yet happen to them is threefold.

(1) When you are truly born again and grow in the grace and knowledge of what the Lord has done for you, your fellowship with God will be sweet, and your assurance that he is your Father will be deep. I want that for you.

(2) If God would be pleased to bring this kind of awakening to his church, then the world will get the real deal of radical love and sacrifice and courage from the church and not all these fake Christians that live just like the world.

(3) If you know what really happened to you in your new birth, you will treasure God and his Spirit and his Son and his word more highly than you ever have. And he will be glorified. So those are some of the reasons why we are focusing on the new birth.

There are several crucial questions we will be asking over the next few weeks. One is: What is the new birth? That is, what actually happens? What is it like? What changes? What comes into being that wasn’t there before?

Another question is: How does it relate to other things that the Bible says God does to bring us to himself and save us? For example, how does being born again relate to

• God’s effectual calling (“Those whom he called he justified” [Romans 8:30]),
• The new creation (“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” [2 Corinthians 5:17]),
• God’s drawing us to Christ (“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” [John 6:44]),
• God’s giving people to his Son (“All that the Father gives me will come to me” [John 6:37]),
• God’s opening our hearts (“The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” [Acts 16:14]),
• God’s illumining our hearts (“God . . . has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” [2 Corinthians 4:6]),
• God’s taking the heart of stone out and giving us a heart of flesh (“I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” [Ezekiel 36:26]),
• God’s making us alive (“even when we were dead in our trespasses, [God] made us alive together with Christ” [Ephesians 2:5]),
• God’s adopting us into his family (“You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’” [Romans 8:15]).

How does God’s act of regeneration relate to all these wonderful ways of describing what happened to us when God saved us?

Another question we will ask is: Why is the new birth necessary? Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:7, “You must be born again.” Not, “I suggest it,” or, “Your life would improve if you added this experience.” Why does John 3:3 tell us that, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God?” This is one of the great reasons for dealing with this. Until we realize that we must be born again, and why we must be born again, we probably will not realize what our condition really is without salvation.

Most people do not know what is really wrong with them. One way to help them make a true and terrible and hopeful diagnosis is to show them the kind of remedy God has provided, namely, the new birth. If you have a sore on your ankle and after the doctor does his test, he comes in and says, “I have hard news: We have to take your leg off just below the knee,” that remedy would tell you more about the sore than many fancy words. So it is with the remedy “you must be born again.”

Another question we will tackle is how the new birth happens. If it is the work of God, which it is, how do I experience it? Is there anything I can do to make it happen?

And a final question we must deal with is: What are the effects of being born again? What changes? What is it like to live as a born-again person?

Let me tell you that millions in the church are not “born again.” Which brings us back to where we started, namely, the claim that “born again” Christians have lifestyles of worldliness and sin that are indistinguishable from the unregenerate. I don’t think so.

First John 5:4 says, “Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith.” But my conviction is not rosy news for the church. It implies that there are millions of church attenders who are not born again.

Would those of you who are born again, and have the Holy Spirit in you, and love God and care about lost people, pray with me that the effect of these messages will be to awaken the spiritually dead — both the ones who never go to church, and those who have been there all their lives?