As we begin, maybe I can get a little help. We are going to hand out these little booklets. I have a little speech to give—well, teaching today—but I also have the text of that speech in booklets up here. Could someone help make sure everybody gets one?
This is for everybody: everybody who has been here the first time, the fifth time, or the two-hundredth time.
How are we doing? Organized chaos?
Also, this little booklet has a bunch of Bible verses in it, so I think it is really important for everybody to have a Bible. If somebody does not have a Bible, we have a stack of Bibles over here. I would like to give a Bible to everyone who does not have one.
Scott, do you want to get a stack of Bibles and go around and see who needs one? These Bibles are free—free to keep. Who does not have a Bible? I want everybody to have a Bible to take home with them.
If you have been here twenty years and do not have a Bible, shame on you—but you are welcome to one of these also.
Did everybody get one of these little colored books? The book looks like this. Where are all the spares? Let us get them all handed out.
Who is riding the bus today? Stephen Spence, Jeffrey, give Jeffrey all your leftovers. Give Jeffrey the leftovers, and Stephen, because there are a number of people who are going to be riding the bus. Make sure everybody on the bus, if they were not in here today, has one.
Put them in their pockets. Put two or three in their pockets. Put five in their pockets—make sure they get home.
Okay, I am going to say a couple of things before we get to the booklet. Everybody who is enjoying the booklet, put it away now. I did not know when to hand those out.
I love to tell a story. You have a story to tell.
Lord, we thank You for this so great salvation that we have come and returned to You this morning to thank You for. Lord, we pray that You would touch our hearts this morning as we consider Your so great salvation. In Jesus’ name.
Well, lately I have been reading a book in the Bible called the Gospel of John. John wrote a book about Jesus. Actually, I have been reading that book for forty-four years. I always come back to that book.
This is a great book. It tells a whole lot about God, but there is one thought that I could not get away from. Having been a believer for forty-four years, you would think this would be kind of simple, but it is John 3:3:
Ye must be born again.
We often think that this verse is for those who have not been to church much, who do not know much about church, or for people who are not very interested in religious things. And it is. It is that kind of verse. But you know what else it is? It is the gospel for all of us.
My burden really started for this time when I thought about our young people—those who have grown up in the church, growing up here. I also thought of those who have lived their whole life here, those who were here when this church started.
This gospel, this book, is for all of us, and so we all need to pay attention. You must—you, you—you must. You must be born again to see God, to see the kingdom of God. So you must be born again.
The men who have been speaking up here have been speaking quite a bit lately about the Book of Revelation. Revelation is the last book in the Bible. There are sixty-six books in your Bible; the last one is Revelation. That book was written by John.
John was one of the best friends of Jesus Christ when He was on earth. We call him an apostle—the apostle John. And you know what else John wrote? He wrote this Gospel.
John probably wrote when he was older. I think he was probably in his nineties. He may have been in exile on Patmos, so he could not get out and see Christians. He could not travel and talk to them face to face, but he wrote. He wrote to them. He wrote books to them.
You would think that, when he was that age, he would want to write the most important thing he could tell them.
When John wrote, it was the end of the first century. It was after Jesus had been on earth, had left, and had gone. What was the condition we find? It was described in these seven churches as a time of declension, a time of spiritual decline.
Christians were losing interest. They were turning away from spiritual things. They were turning away from the Lord—not necessarily actively, but passively. They were slipping away from the simplicity and purity of Jesus Christ.
So this word is to all of us. Saying that John was quite old and without much time left, what do you think his message would be in a state of declension and decline?
“You need to do this. You need to do this. Do this, do that. If you will just do this, everything will be all right. Well, just fix this. Fix that in your life. Do that, and everything will be all right.”
Is that what he did? Nope. Nope. He wrote a book. He wrote a story about Jesus. His answer to the state of decline was: Look unto Jesus.
And I think, if that was the answer to the church in the early days, that is the answer to us today. Look off to Jesus. See Jesus afresh. That is all he wrote about—all that Jesus said or did, he wrote in that Book of John.
We were at Harvey Cedars last week, and we spoke to a couple from England. I think it is David Wong—is that right?—and his wife, whose name I cannot remember. They have had the privilege of helping take care of an older man in England, a man we all know: Fred Flack.
Fred is 105 years old, full of the Holy Spirit. I kind of believe that the older we get, maybe the more the Spirit of God comes out. Our flesh is weak, our feistiness is worn down, and all we have left is the Spirit of God.
Anyway, Fred is feisty in the Lord. He is full of the Holy Spirit. They asked him, “Fred, we are going to New Jersey to this conference. What word would you have for the Christians at that conference?”
At 105 years old, he said, “Always fresh, always fresh.”
That is why I think this gospel message is so important to all of us today: that we keep our relationship with the Lord Jesus always fresh, if you will.
If we could summarize the message in the Book of John—John did not tell us what his purpose was until the end. He said:
Therefore many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book:
But these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
There are two parts to that passage. He said that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, might come to salvation, might believe in Jesus; and that, having believed, you may have life in His name.
That Greek text of having life is actively having life, actively knowing our born-againness. That is what John really wanted to show us.
Look at John 3. If you turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 3, this is where the verse that says, “You must be born again,” appears.
Let us start at the first of John 3, if I can find it. I could find it in a minute if I was not up here.
The title in this New American Standard Bible is “The New Birth.” Let me read the first three verses:
Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews:
The same came to Him by night, and said unto Him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these signs that Thou doest, except God be with him.
The Pharisees were a religious group. Nicodemus was like a preacher of the Jews—an established, respected religious authority. So he knew there was something with Jesus.
If you look at this passage, Jesus did not really directly answer Nicodemus right off the bat. He said, “Nicodemus, I know how you are thinking. You are thinking religion here. You are thinking rules, regulations, and so forth. But I have to tell you”:
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except one be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
Unless one is born again. And John 3:6 says:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
We all see things with our eyes. We have human bodies; we relate to things that way. But what the Lord was saying here is that there is another whole realm that He wants us to be aware of, and that is spirit.
You must be born again to see the Spirit, to see spiritual things, to see God. You must be born again. That is what we want to talk about today.
These verses are really important. If you have not believed in the Lord, today is the day to believe. If you have believed in the Lord a few days ago, a few years ago, or decades ago, they are just as important.
You must be born again and live out of that born-againness. God is calling us to come to Him and to live a life in the Spirit. You must be born again. This is our beginning; it is the way we begin. This is our way through our days. And this is our end—the way we finish.
The thing that we are talking about today is a door—a door, an opening to spiritual things.
Kenny is a structural engineer, not an architect. When you build something, it is very important that you have a great foundation. If you do not have a good foundation, things are not really of substance. What happens to doors? The doors do not open. They do not work. They jam; they get crooked.
But we are talking about something that is a great foundation. The door that I am asking you to think about today is the door of your heart: to open yourself, to open yourself to God.
I have thought about this quite a bit, but I am going to do a practical illustration so that you have something to stick in your mind when you leave.
Well, thank you for opening the door. Fontaine opened the door. That physical door works. That is a good door. It is a good building. Kenny engineered it; we know it is sturdy. But that door works.
The door to your heart works. It is available today. Are you not born again? Open that door. Have you been born in this fellowship? Have you gone to church here since you were a baby, and have you asked Jesus into your heart? Open that door today.
Exercise your born-againness. Are you old? There are a whole lot more of us old than want to realize.
Opening that door is the way to finish. Always fresh. Kenny said he was middle-aged a couple of weeks ago, so God bless him.
We want to talk today about born-againness. Let us start with this little booklet. This is really my personal testimony.
This is a book that was put out by Campus Crusade for Christ. Forty years ago, someone shared this with me and with my wife.
Now, the theologians here will get troubled with “law,” so theologians, forget it. Either do not get bothered, or substitute the word fact.
Have you heard of the Four Spiritual Laws? Just as there are physical laws—physical principles—that govern the physical universe, there are spiritual laws that govern our relationship with God. There is another world out there. God is out there, knocking on the door.
The first statement in Law One—or Fact One—is: God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
That is why Bibles are good to have. Right down there is a verse: John 3:16. In your Bible, if you go to the Gospel of John, that verse is there.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish,
but have eternal life.
What is this love? Just for helpfulness, there are three types of love discussed in the Bible. There is erotic love, the kind of love between a man and a woman. There is phileo, which is brotherly love between man and man. And there is agape love.
That is the love that God has for man. That is unconditional. This world we live in is combative, and we are pushed away. We are not trusting in love, or love in the world. But this is a trustworthy love. This is the love of God—agape love, unconditional love.
This is another verse out of John’s Gospel. Remember what Christ said:
I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.
Jesus Christ came that mankind might have spiritual life—life beyond this worldly life. The word life here is the kind of life God has. It is not physical life. It is not psychological life. It is godly life.
So He came that we might have life full of God in the Spirit. Why is it that we are not experiencing that abundant life? We are going to go to Law Two—Rule Two, Fact Two.
Man is sinful and separated from God; therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.
Here are some verses that illustrate that:
For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God.
That is Romans 3:23. Man was created to have fellowship with God, but because of his own stubborn self-will, he chose to go his own independent way, and fellowship with God was broken.
The self-will characterized by an attitude of active rebellion or passive indifference is what the Bible calls sin. These things separate us from God.
I want to talk about active rebellion and passive indifference. What do you think about active rebellion? “I am against God. I do not believe God. That is foolishness.” We hear that. We hear that on TV today.
I doubt there are many of us in that state. I do not think so. I do not think you would be here today if you were in that state. But there is something we need to think about: passive indifference.
What is passive indifference? That is for one who has not believed, and it is for all of us who have believed. Do we have passive indifference toward the things of God?
Sin separates us from God. God is holy. No relationship is possible with God if we are in sin.
This diagram illustrates that God is holy and man is sinful. A great gulf separates the two. The arrows illustrate that man is continually trying to reach God and enter into salvation and abundant life. He is trying to do it by his own efforts: good life, philosophy, religion—but he inevitably fails.
There is something in each human being, deep within us, called our spirit. That spirit longs for relationship with God.
If we do not have that relationship with God, we are always going to be anxious. We are always going to be short. We are always going to fall short.
If you have not believed—and if you have believed, young people and old people—we can still get into this emptiness because we are not feeding our spirit. We are not growing spiritually. We are not communing with God.
The third law, the third fact, explains the way to bridge the gulf between man and God.
Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him, you can know and experience God’s love and plan for your life.
But God commendeth His own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
The way to bridge that gap between man and God is Jesus Christ and His dying for our sins. He paid the price for our sins. The way has been made clear. That is Romans 5:8.
Jesus rose from the dead. He died for our sins. He was buried. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. He appeared to Peter, then to the twelve, and after that He appeared to more than five hundred.
Anybody can die. Anybody can die for a good friend, and that is his end. Christ died, but God the Father accepted that death on the cross. He validated that by raising Jesus Christ from the dead.
So His provision—His dying on the cross for us—is validated by God the Father.
When I was first saved in Campus Crusade, they always wanted you to come give your testimony—come and tell how you were saved. That is good for other college kids to hear who were not saved. That is my testimony:
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life:
no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
That is out of John’s Gospel again: John 14:6. Is that true when we first believed? Is that true today? For twelve, fourteen, sixteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty, sixty-five, seventy?
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life for all of us. He is the way when you start, and He is the way today.
This diagram illustrates that God has bridged the gulf that separates us from Him by sending His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross in our place and to pay the penalty for our sins. It is not enough just to know these three laws. We need to go on to the next step.
We must individually open the door. We must individually make a choice. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.
We have to open the door today. Every one of us needs to open that door today. We must receive Christ.
But as many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God,
even to them that believe on His name.
We receive Christ through faith.
For by grace have ye been saved through faith;
and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;
not of works, that no man should glory.
When we receive Christ, we experience a new birth. Go back and read John 3:3 and John 3:6.
We receive Christ through personal invitation:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock:
if any man hear My voice and open the door,
I will come in to him.
He says that on the day of salvation. He says that the second day, the third day—He stands at the door and knocks. Brothers and sisters, open the door today.
Receiving Christ involves turning to God from self: repent. Trust Christ to come into our lives, to forgive our sins, and to make us what He wants us to be.
It is not enough to agree intellectually that He is the Son of God. Agreeing intellectually is not enough. It is not enough to have an emotional experience. We receive Christ by faith as an act of the will.
We have two circles that represent two kinds of life. This one represents a life without Christ. That circle represents your life. The chair in the middle is a throne. That is who is in charge of your life.
The cross represents Christ. Where is Christ in this picture? He is outside. Christ is outside. This is an unhappy camper. That is an unfulfilled person. Very sad.
What is the result when self is on the throne and Christ is outside? Interests are self-directed, often resulting in discord, a disordered life, an unhappy life, and a frustrated life.
What is this life over here? Christ is in the life. This person has asked the Lord into his life. He has placed Christ on the throne of life and put self at the footstool.
See how this is all ordered? All the little things of life are in good order. Christ is in the life, on the throne. Self is yielding to Christ, resulting in harmony. Interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God’s plan.
Which represents your life today? Which one? Which one do you want to be?
There is a way to get to that. If you want to get to this orderly life with Christ on the throne, there is a way. That way is to open the door of your heart and ask Jesus into your life.
I am going to read a little prayer that talks about how to invite Christ into our life. I do not expect people—if you want to pray this prayer, sometimes people get a little nervous and do not like to do these kinds of things in public.
We are going to have a chance at the end of the meeting to come up front if you want to talk about it. You can take the book home, think about it later, and ask Christ into your life. But let us see how you do that.
Maybe we should all just bow our heads and think about this. If you want to ask Christ into your life, if you want to give up your natural life and come into an abundant, peaceful life of Christ—of God in you—think about saying this prayer. Pray it with me if you will:
Lord Jesus, I need You.
Thank You for dying on the cross for my sins.
I open the door of my life and receive You as my Savior and Lord.
Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life.
Take control of the throne of my life.
Make me the kind of person You want me to be.
Why do we not just stop for a minute? If you want to pray that prayer, I ask you to pray it right now, to yourself.
At the end, if you have prayed that prayer, we are going to have some people come up front. We will be glad to talk to you about it.
If that is the desire of your heart, and you have been here since you were a baby but you know you are not walking with the Lord—if you know you are in this frustrated, ugly, disoriented life—would you turn back to the Lord and ask the Lord to fill you today?
You are a senior citizen. You are struggling with things in this life. You are struggling with so much to do. If your job in this world is eating you alive, I want to ask you to open the door and ask the Lord to come in afresh and fill you full and overflowing.
Let us just take a minute and pray—pray to ourselves. Then we will go on to a little bit more in this book.
Amen.
Okay, let us go on and finish this up. The rest of this is not on the overhead. Go to your little books now. There is a page that says, “Now That You Have Received Christ: How to Know That Christ Is in Your Life.” It is page 11.
This is called verses of assurance. This is putting your faith in the facts of what the Bible says.
If you have asked Christ into your life—did you receive Christ into your life by sincerely praying that prayer? Then, according to His promise in Revelation 3:20, where is He right now?
Christ said He would come into your life. Would He mislead you? On what authority do you know that God has answered your prayer? The trustworthiness of God Himself and His Word.
If this is the first time you prayed that prayer, where is Christ right now? In your life. If you have been here one hundred years, where is Christ right now? You are born again: Christ in us, the hope of glory.
The Bible promises eternal life:
And the witness is this, that God gave unto us eternal life,
and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son hath the life;
he that hath not the Son of God hath not the life.
These things have I written unto you, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.
We have life. Jesus Christ is in us. And Hebrews 13:5 says that He will never leave us or forsake us.
Two more pieces of this, and then I will close. In the same book, it says, “Now that you have received Christ, what has happened?” These are a few of the things that have happened.
Christ came into your life: Revelation 3:20 and Colossians 1:27. This describes a Christian. This is a condition new Christians or old Christians ought to be living in:
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Christ, through the Holy Spirit—asking Him in—has come to live in our spirit and give life to our dead spirit. We need to know that. All of us need to know that.
Our sins were forgiven. You became a child of God. You received eternal life—resurrection, zoe, beyond time in quality. You received a new life. And you began the great adventure for which God created you. Hallelujah.
New believers, old believers, young believers, teenage believers, people who grew up in this assembly and have taken these things for granted—let me tell you something: Christ in you, the hope of glory. Your life is not your own.
One last thing in this little book, a couple of things here, and then I will close. This next thing talks through a little acronym on growth.
Brother Kong gave us a whole series on spiritual exercise: how important it is to exercise that spirit in us that has been born again, that Christ has filled with His life. Living in spirit is what the Lord is after. He is after full-grown sons. He is after a bride who has made herself ready.
So this growth—forty-four years ago, God had that same message for us. He had it for me; He has it for us today.
These are not rules. These are life and death. Can I say that? These are life and death.
Campus Crusade’s witnessing was for sure sharing the gospel, but what they said in writing here was, “Witness for Christ by your life and words.” Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our witness is first and foremost Christ’s life. Our life should mirror God’s life.
Then, fellowship in a good church. God’s Word instructs us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. As far as feeding your spirit, being with God’s people and not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together is key.
Okay, let me close. What have we been saying today? What did John—the apostle John, the best friend of Jesus—have to say to us when he wrote that book at the end of his days? Among all that he said in that Gospel, when Nicodemus came to Him, Jesus said:
Ye must be born again, or ye cannot see the kingdom of God.
Are you not born again? We have discussed the way to new birth today. I wonder if God is touching your heart and calling you to give your life to Him. Today is the day to yield to that call.
Have you grown up in a good Christian family? Have you taken spiritual things for granted? Have you asked Jesus into your heart? The question today is: do you know that you have been born again?
I think a lot of times we share this gospel of grace, and we say, “God has forgiven my sins. I am okay. I am going to go to heaven. That is it. Hallelujah.” That is the starting point. The gospel of grace is the starting point.
Christ has been born in you, young ones—born ones, young men. Christ is in you.
I want to read a very serious verse:
Test yourselves, to see whether ye are in the faith; prove your own selves.
Or know ye not as to your own selves, that Jesus Christ is in you?
unless indeed ye be reprobate.
That is 2 Corinthians 13:5. I just got carried away. I am so used to that other verse, I wrote the wrong one down. Test yourselves.
Believe in the Lord; today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to test ourselves. See if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Do you not recognize this about yourselves—that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail the test?
I am sorry—that is serious. Is Christ in you? Are you living for Him? Have you given up your own interests? Is Christ in you? Let us live out from that principle.
Children, young men, old men—is that right? I forget what he calls them. Do you know that you have been saved from your sins, old men, and that you have been born again?
If so, is that precious life being fed and growing in you? The Lord is after mature Christians—sons. Are you caught up in the world and living in passive indifference?
Active rebellion or passive indifference: I believe the Lord would ask us today, are we living in passive indifference in light of this glorious gospel?
Let us close. We are going to wait up here if people have questions or if they want to talk more. If there is someone you know who is close to you, who maybe brought you today, and you want to ask questions about this, do not let it go. Be free to come up here after we close.
Lord, we thank You for Your good news. We thank You for Your good news: for us to be born again, to be saved from our sins, and to be born into the family of God.
We thank You so much that You have done that for many of us. Lord, we thank You that the big portion of that life is to be born again, to be born in spirit. We thank You for filling us with Your Spirit.
Lord, I want to pray as one of the old men. I pray for forgiveness for taking these things lightly, and pray that You would redeem my life, that we might be pursuing Christ, that we as Your people might be gaining Christ in the fullness of that new-birth life. We pray in Jesus’ name.