Reforming FamilyLife & Public Culture

“For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 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 and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.” Titus 3:3-6

Rabbi Nic’s Story

This is about a guy in the New Testament who is struggling with the same issues we struggle with -- but he was from a super-religious background.

It’s found in John 3:1-4 :

“Now there was a man . . . a Pharisee (that’s a religious sect) named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. (He was a scholar, a religious Scholar.) This man came to Him by night and said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, we know that You’ve come from God as a teacher for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with Him. And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And 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?’

Nicodemus sounds baffled at this point, but he’s not baffled over the term ‘born again.’ The term ‘born again’ was one used regularly in Jewish society at this time, culturally speaking. It was used when a boy was circumcised. He was ‘born again’ into the House of Israel – into the covenant -- as a child. A Gentile who was baptized into Judaism in those days was said to be ‘born again.’ When a man was married to a wife, he was ‘born again.’ All these new phases of life or new seasons of life were signaled or coined by the term ‘born again.’

In fact, in Judaism, there were eight born-again experiences you could have as a man over your life-time.

The last born-again experience for any man, if he was to have this last, was kind of the highest. It happened after he turned 40 and he was selected to be a rabbi – a teacher of Israel. It was the greatest born again experience you could have. Nicodemus, as a ruler of the Jews, had had that experience for himself. It was the highest phase of life for a Jew.

Please note here’s Nicodemus who’s had all these born-again experiences a man could have, he’d been circumcised, he had been bar mitzvahed, he had been married, he was over 40 and he was a rabbi – in fact, one of the leading rabbis within Israel! Why he’s baffled is because Jesus looked at this super-religious man – old Nic – and still says to him ‘you must be born again. Notice, He says to Nicodemus, ‘Truly, truly I say to YOU –[I’m not speaking to anybody else; it’s just you and Me here…] but I say to you, ‘you have to be born again’ and Nicodemus says, “Well, how can I be born again? I’m old; I’ve done it all; I’ve experienced it all; I’ve had all the seasons of life that a man can have; what else is there?”

Jesus is saying to him, ‘Yes, you’ve had all those. It’s just the most important one you haven’t had yet. The one that’s called ‘born of the spirit’.

The hardest person to reach is not the non-religious, depraved person, it’s the religious, depraved person - they are the hardest to reach. Not the secularist – it’s the religionist. It’s not the crazy guy - it’s the church guy. They often are the hardest people to reach. It’s the person who grew up in church, heard the words, saw the sights, recited the creeds and sang the songs – and was dutiful and regular in his church attendance, but who has never been changed from within by a life-changing encounter, where in desperation in his lostness, he gave his life away to the Savior of the world. He’s never had that. He’s had everything else – he just hadn’t had a life changing encounter with Jesus. They assume – and are sometimes are even assured – that in doing church, in being confirmed, or being baptized or singing in the choir, or growing up in a Christian home, or being married in the church – that somehow all these ‘born-again’ experiences are enough.

Comrades, I want you to know – those are good experiences – but they’re just not the essential experience. You can have all those experiences, but you’d better have the one that really counts the most, the one that Jesus is talking about here: being born from within of the Spirit. That experience deals with the deepest wound in a man’s life. It goes to the darkest corner and finally turns the light on. If you haven’t had that experience, everything else is irrelevant:

—John 3:5-10 “Jesus answered and said, ‘truly, truly’ (now if somebody says ‘truly, truly’ it’s almost like shouting “This is the truth. This is the truth.”) I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is just flesh; and that which is born of Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you ‘you must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it’s going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. (It’s mysterious. It cannot be manufactured by human will. It’s of God. That’s what He’s saying’.) So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.’ “Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’ and Jesus said to him (kind of marveling at Nicodemus) ‘Are you (not just a teacher of Israel?) Are you the teacher in Israel and you don’t understand these things?”

He had that kind of standing among the people, yet he couldn’t speak the real language. It’s just like men today can do everything, but they can’t tell you what a man is. They can’t speak manhood language. They can connect on sports and business, and superficial recreations, but they cannot connect at the heart, because they don’t have a heart language.

Jesus is saying, ‘yeah, you can connect up here with creeds and what church you go to, but you cannot connect at the deeper, Spirit language.’ Nicodemus was in that camp. One man was wanting to talk about theological rituals, and the other man wanting to talk about a transformation of a fallen nature. That alone is key to a man being redirected. Then he can move out of his own self-centered existence to the noble things of a spiritual existence. He finds the bent that he has towards his own godlessness bent back by the Spirit to a God-seeking nature. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be perfect, it just means you’ve been changed at the core. Only God can make that change in you. That’s what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus.

If what you call faith takes you back to the great liturgies of the church – and there are a lot of great liturgies in the church – or what you call faith takes you back to traditions or church attendance - or when you think about faith you think ‘Baptist’ or ‘Methodist’ or ‘Presbyterian’ or ‘Catholic’ – as the first thoughts in your mind. If most of your spiritual highs come from singing some great song in a church, or reciting a great creed, or stained glass, or those kinds of things. If that’s where your thoughts go, and they don’t go to a recreated spirit

Everyone has to be recreated if you’re going to go from a superficial manhood to an authentic manhood. We’ve talked about the darkness of our own heart the last 2 days. We’re wounded by birth. We’re healed by re-birth, and that is the essence, core and bottom line of manhood. Without it, everything else is futile.

Nicodemus didn’t like hearing what he heard, because he wanted religion to be the real thing, and it wasn’t. So, what is the ‘real thing?’ Let me give you three phrases from what this story tell us.

1. In verse 5 and verse 8, you see the little phrase ‘born of the spirit’. It means that the real thing is a supernatural rebirth. It’s not something that you can make happen. Only God can make it happen. It’s something you can only receive by faith - just simply by believing. 1John 1:12-13 says: “But as many as received Him, it’s to them that He gave the right to become children of God.”

They received Him how? By faith, by believing He could change their hearts. That’s the only way I can get my heart changed is if God changes it. It’s to them that He gives the right to start becoming children of God, only to those who believe in His name.

1John 1:13“…who were born not of blood (that means you can’t be born into the faith) not of the will of the flesh (it’s not natural ability; you’re not strong enough, smart enough, quick enough) nor of the will of man (you can’t say ‘I’m just gonna be better.’ You can’t will it. He says you can’t do any of those things. So how are we born again? It says) of God.”

It has to come from His hand, graciously given to you, as He gives His Spirit to you to recreate you anew from within, and then you spend the rest of your life getting it on the outside. That’s called the Christian life. Real spiritual life is not a religion. It’s a life-changing encounter when God, not only forgives our sins not only forgives our sin, but He changes our nature. God puts a seed of life at the very core of our being and from that time on, there is something inside us that yearns to be like Him. Then He offers His Spirit over a lifetime to begin to reclaim all the ground we have lost and to change us as we continue to yield ourselves to Him by faith. But it starts in the moment we give up ourselves, and we look to God in need, to change us from the inside out. We are then “Born of the Spirit.”

2. Secondly, notice the word ‘must’ in verse 7. It tells us the real thing means an irreplaceable re-birth. It’s irreplaceable. There is no substitute for it. The church can’t replace it:- a religious experience or tender moment can’t replace it - theological education can’t replace it - good deeds can’t replace it - personal reform can’t replace it, where you say, “hey! I stopped drinking! I got out of debt!” None of those are a substitute for what I’m talking about.

Jesus said, without being born again from within, you’re excluded from the kingdom of God.

3. Third, notice the word ‘you’ in verse 7. It tells us that the real thing must be a personal rebirth. A personal rebirth. This is an issue between you and God only. You weren’t born into it because mom and dad were good Christians. I know a lot of kids who grew up in great Christian homes who never understood that they personally must make the same choice that their parents courageously made years before. We are only reborn when in our individual hearts, we alone by faith cry out to God to change us – and we mean it’ Then God reaches within us and says, “Now, I’m going to change you from within, and you’ll never be the same.’

So, where are you? What’s your story? That’s the real question today. and where are you in relationship to this kind of spiritual truth? The whole world has a need to be transformed from within.

Let me ask you the question. Are you Comrades man enough to hear it? Have you been born again? When I make that statement, do you go back to a place where, regardless of how you’re living it out, you know there was a moment where you gave up your life and you embraced His life and something happened. Maybe you’re even stifling some of that growth. But from within, there’s an impulse that wants to get out, and you know that, and you respond to it even today.

Or when I ask that question, what you experience is confusion and doubt, just like Nicodemus.

Maybe you’re saying “what are you talking about?”

This is extremely important because you will never deal with the deepest wound until you embrace Christ in faith and plead with Him to change your darkened heart, like I did some 16 years ago.

Now, in this great hall of masculinity, I want to ask you, would you like to do that now? Would you like to invite the living God to come into you and to begin a reconstruction process, the ultimate footing – a foundation that’s laid where your nature has a chance to be changed.

All I can offer to you is a simple prayer. If you want to you can pray this prayer with me this right now. I’ll lead you.

If this expresses the desire of your heart now - where you are now - if something from within you is crying out to saying, “I need this,” - then you pray these words

🙏🏿PRAY: Dear GOD, I admit that I am a sinner and I want to have a relationship with You. Please forgive me for all of the wrong things I have done. I believe in my heart that JESUS died and rose again to take away my sin, and I declare JESUS CHRIST as my LORD and SAVIOR. Please fill me with Your HOLY SPIRIT that I may be faithful to You. Thank you for saving me and for letting me become Your child. Please speak to me and help me to hear Your voice and to follow Your ways. I look forward to spending time with You, both here on earth and in heaven. In JESUS' name I pray, amen.

If you prayed that prayer for the first time – you’ve never prayed that before – then you be man enough to tell someone and fill in your details below

🤝 Say YES to JESUS, Click https://forms.gle/HsY2c2pAU1Emtcgc7

For those of you who made the decision today to invite Jesus Christ into your life, I’ve got one word for you as I close. Welcome to GOD’s Family!