Jared:
So what does it mean to be born again? So what does that really practically mean?
Pastor David:
Okay.
Jared:
What does it mean spiritually? What does it mean for eternity?
Pastor David:
Yeah, born again. A fancy word for born again would be regeneration by the Holy Spirit. So being born again, the question was asked in John Chapter Three of Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee, a learned purveyor of the scriptures, the Torah.
Pastor David:
And a responsible leader within his community, a religious leader. And he snuck out, met Jesus at late at night. And in that meeting, he just says, "Hey, nobody could do what you're doing, Jesus, unless, God was with him." And Jesus just kind of goes right to it and says to him, "You must be born again." So He confronts an idea that Nicodemus has never, ever considered. This is not on his Torah training classes.
Pastor David:
The idea of being born again. And so the natural response to that was, by Nicodemus was, "How's that possible?"
Pastor David:
"Am I supposed to somehow as a grown man, climb up back into my mother's womb, and be born again? In other words, that's a pretty crazy statement.
Pastor David:
So he's using logic to deal with a spiritual truth that Jesus is trying to convey.
Pastor David:
And then Jesus, once again, I love the simplicity of how God answers these things. Jesus says, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Don't be surprised that I'm telling you must be born again or you have to be born again."
Pastor David:
So He's letting him know that, "You've already had the natural birth. I'm not talking about natural birth."
Pastor David:
"That which is born of the flesh, I'm talking about a spiritual birth."
Pastor David:
And so it's very simple. It's the understanding of the spiritual birth. So the spiritual birth comes first by the recognition that you're dead, that you're not alive to God. Spiritually. And that happened in the garden when Adam sinned, fell away from God, was excommunicated from the garden. The consequence of that was when Adam sinned, according to Romans, when Adam sinned, I sinned, you sinned, we all sin, because we were all in Adam, we're all children of Adam. So the nature of sin was then passed down, genetically, spiritually, to us. The consequence of that is according to what God told Adam at the time, which is, "If you do this, you're going to die."
Pastor David:
Well, he didn't physically die that moment, but he died immediately spiritually. He became dead in his awareness, his relationship, his connectivity with God. It became dead and that's been passed down. So we're all dead, according to Romans, we're all dead in our trespasses and in our sins. So our sin separates us from God. And a sacrificial system was implemented in the Old Testament to show us how exceedingly sinful we were, that no matter how many doves or lambs or oxen were killed it still couldn't fully absolve us. Or bring a solution. To the thing that was separating us from God. And so then that's when Jesus came. Jesus came to become the lamb of God that removes the sins of the world.
Pastor David:
So He came to pour out His blood and He died, according to Hebrews, once and for all. So He doesn't have to keep dying. His solution on the cross was to absolve or remove the power of sin. And the sins came from our soul. Now, the only way that gets activated in you and I is by putting our faith in that sacrificial work of Jesus on the cross.That's where that comes. So I believe He died because of my sin and for my sin. So He became me. Just like I was in Adam when Adam sinned, I was in Christ when He died.
Pastor David:
And so my sin died with Him. But I have to put my faith in that. If I don't put my faith in that, then there's no connection of faith to the power of God. Which is the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit. That's when I become born again. So then we all know He went into the tomb, stayed there three days, and then He was raised by the power of God to walk in newness of life. And so we, once again, are in Christ, not just in His death, but in His resurrection, that's the power of the testimony of baptism.
Pastor David:
We go down old men, come up to rise in newness of life. So this is maybe an oversimplification, but it really is the essence of it, that Jesus died for our sin, because we were dead. And then when He rose from the grave, if I put my faith in His death and resurrection, then I, my sin dies with Him and I am raised with Him in newness of life. And so when I put my faith in that the power of the Holy Spirit is activated in my life. And in the spirit I become born again. To be a new kind of person. And that's what 2 Corinthians says in Chapter 5, Verse 17 and 18. It says, "If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things are passing away, everything is becoming new." And so this is where that new birth takes hold. And now it's about us growing up into Christ. So I don't become perfect at salvation. My Spirit's perfect.
Pastor David:
But I still got this soul. I still got this life that I've got all this sin effect that is still being translated by my thoughts, by my actions, by my habits, by my behaviors, by my personality issues. And so I have to grow into, I have to grow with that, regenerative work. Just like when you're born, right? You don't start running and feeding yourself and taking care of that. You got to have a process. That's why we need church. That's why we need to pray. That's why we need to read our Bibles. That's why we need to do these. Because these things help us grow up into Christ.
Pastor David:
That's why small groups are important. That's why all of this is a part. Fellowship is important because it helps nurture us in our growth. In Him so that we can become the full reflection of what He's called us to be. And we reflect the reason why we were born again. So we're born again, not to live our life. We're born again to live His life through us. And so that's really the goal that God has. In the born again experience. Plus being reunited with Our father.
Jared:
Sure, So as far as practically, because I think it's really easy, I wouldn't say easy, but it's really nice to celebrate the things that we sort of take off. You know what I mean? When we're born again. Because a lot of them are very destructive. You know what I mean?
Pastor David:
Sure, yeah, stress, behaviors.
Jared:
Yeah, exactly. Addictions. And all these things that are splitting up your family and literally keeping you in hell, here on earth. But what are some of the things that you would say are things that someone who's born again would take on? You know what I mean? What are some traits that you can look at and say, "That's how someone who's born again would react to this situation?" Or, "That's what they would feel about this thing?"
Pastor David:
Right? You have a baseline, which is the nature of Christ. So it's ultimately the nature of Christ. So, once again, you have to grow into it. And the Bible calls it the fruits of the spirit. So fruits are produced. So there's this developmental component. So that's why I talk about growing up. But what starts in us is a focused passion. So like a baby when it's born knows the voice of its mother, for And knows the voice of its father, for As long as the parents are there together. They know. And there's a familiarity in relationship to that. So when nobody else can calm or soothe the child, the mother can. And the father can. So there's this innate desire in us to want to be in the presence of God. There's this innate desire in us to be with those who are the family of God.
Pastor David:
And we know no man, according to Paul, in 2 Corinthians again, we know no man by the flesh anymore. We know them by the spirit. So this longing to be in God's presence, hear His word. It's soothing. It's comforting. So you have a hunger for God's word. You have a desire to be in fellowship with God. So that's prayer, that's worship. You begin to acknowledge and recognize, habits and behaviors that were acceptable to you before, now all of a sudden you got conviction about that. It's like, "I really shouldn't be behaving like this." "Why am I acting like this?"
Pastor David:
And so you begin to start, critically, I call it conviction. The Holy Spirit brings conviction. You have this conviction about what's right and what's wrong. In your behaviors and your attitudes, in your actions. And you start becoming, you grow in sensitivity to that, as you grow in your relationship with God. So I don't know if that's a good answer to your question practically.
Jared:
I think it's as practical as you can get, because so much of it is faith. You know what I mean? Even getting over, like I was saying earlier, like taking things off and getting over these sinful habits and behaviors and stuff. It's so much of just faith that, "Okay, I'm going to take this step out and let go of this thing and I trust You will catch me."
Pastor David:
Yeah, I'm going to let go of it because I know my heart's grieved about it. And I see what it's doing to the people around me. I see what it's doing to me. And it's not just a self-awareness. It's really comes from God bringing that awareness.
Jared:
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah,
Pastor David:
And so you become alive to the things that matter to God. And you're willing to subject yourself to His wisdom. And His truth as it relates to it.
Jared:
And just trusting that His way is better.
Pastor David:
Absolutely.
Jared:
I'm not going to lose anything that I-
Pastor David:
I've never had a baby not trust it's mother 0r not trust it's father. It doesn't sit there and go, "I don't know if I want to eat that." It might not like it. But, but it knows. It's innate.
Jared:
Totally. "I'm going to follow that person."
Pastor David:
"My mother's going to take care of me." "My father's going to take care of me." And there's an innate sense of God working in you that you can trust Him even with the stuff you don't understand. And you don't really know. And that awareness and you grow in that and develop that. As long as you stay in His words. Stay in fellowship and relationship with Him.
Pastor David:
Hopefully that helps.
Jared:
No, that's great, man. I love that. Like I said, I love the way you always describe being born again. I haven't really heard anybody talk about it in that way, but that'll preach.