Born again

A disciple leaves all and follows Jesus.

John 3.3, Jesus says, Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

When you're born again, all right, has anyone seen a baby come out? what's the first thing they do? They cry, right? They're not coming out smiling, loving life, right? They're crying, why? Because it's a thing.

But it's a new life now, okay? It's a new life.

The birth process is painful, but it's a new creation.

When you lay down your sins at that cross and you ask God to forgive you and he does forgive you, You can walk up from that a new creation.

Like a baby being reborn, you're a new creation.

You're being born again.

and sad to say this is what most christians have done so let me just give you some of my personal testimony this is really the thing that just transformed my life now i had an encounter with the lord where he just showed up and i was a self-righteous um, Pharisee.

I'd been born again, but I honestly thought that everything was conditional on how holy I lived.

And so I was living as holy as I possibly could.

I was living holier than anybody else that I knew.

So I had this encounter with the Lord that really impacted me.

But did you know, in a way, it confused me and it frustrated me because prior to that experience, I had thought that God loved me, related to me, answered my prayers proportional to my performance.

and so i was trying to have the best performance live as holy as i could and yet i wasn't seeing victory i was i had my father die and i spent weeks fasting and praying for him when i was just 11 years old for him to be healed i had my grandmother die i had a girl that i was unofficially engaged to die and we prayed for her healing and i wasn't seeing results i believed in god i was born again But the reason that I wasn't seeing results is because I was approaching God on the basis of my own goodness.

Now, when I had this encounter and I saw the glory of God, I turned from my own goodness and I recognized that God's love for me was totally by grace.

You know what? I'm a little biased here.

I believe I was born again from a Catholic Bible, reading my grandfather's Bible in the basement.

in my old house in the old days.

But I agree.

Okay.

So this question is an interesting one, though, because it's going to give you a shot to just kind of express the gospel here.

So this person says he grew up in a Baptist church where they were taught that people in other Christian denominations would not go to heaven because they weren't considered born again in the Baptist sense.

Now, this person here, Pastor Lowry, has struggled with this, and they feel that the relationship with God is what matters most.

That's what they were mad about.

Do you know that if a lot of people truly started getting saved in our society, that it would have an economic impact? Isn't that true? I mean, if we were genuinely seeing large amounts of people truly born again by the Spirit of God, man, it would make an economic impact that you could never imagine.

Now, I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I have to be honest.

I see hundreds of people baptized over here.

And as Christians, it's our responsibility to do the same.

Friend, do you know the Lord today? I'm not asking if you've joined the church before or if you've been baptized.

Do you know the Lord today? Do you walk with the Lord? Have you been born again? Are you a new creation in Christ Jesus? Do you have the mind of Christ? Is the Spirit of God active in your life? Do you look at your life and you see the Lord in your life? Do other people look at your life and they see the Lord in your life? That's what I'm asking you this morning.

And if you haven't been truly born again, if those devils of the world have not been cast out of your life, I want to call upon you to turn from your sin and put your trust in Christ who died and rose again for you.