2026_05_24 The Necessity of New Birth

You can have all this world has to offer. You can look good. You can have stuff. You can be a good person. You can go to church. You can be religious. But if you've not been born again, you remain in darkness. You remain in your sin in a place of judgment. And everything else is of no value. Apart from the new birth, a person is not a Christian even if they think they are. It's a transformation. Something takes place inside a transaction that god does. [00:49:28] (37 seconds)  #NewBirthMatters

And so as we hear that, the question we're gonna ask naturally is, well, how can I be born of the spirit? What must I do to to inherit this eternal life? Jesus makes that clear. You are born again through the spirit of God when you believe in Jesus Christ. When you put your trust in him to wash your sins away. Put your trust in him for your life, he does the rest. He enacts that inner birth. That's his job. Your job is to repent and to turn to him. [00:58:05] (39 seconds)  #BornOfTheSpirit

You can't be saved through Confucius. You can't be saved through Moses. We cannot be saved by doing good works. None of us are good enough to be saved. You can't be saved by being religious or by going to church. You can't be saved just by being baptized. You have to put your faith in Jesus, and we believe that children are protected by God's grace until they come to that age of decision. But they need to make that decision for themselves, and you need to make that decision for yourself. [01:01:19] (30 seconds)  #FaithNotWorks

Now last week, I asked you to imagine the landscape. One part's covered in darkness, the other part covered in light. The the darkness represents the kingdom of darkness of Satan where Satan rules. The light represents the kingdom of light where god rules. The way you get into the kingdom of darkness is by being born of the flesh, being born as a human being. The only way though that we can get into the other kingdom, the kingdom of light is by being born again as we just read. [00:53:51] (31 seconds)  #KingdomOfLight

The new life within you is of God himself. It's an imperishable seed. It's Christ's life. The one that life from your parents, it's human life. This new birth, it's Christ's eternal life. Flesh gives birth to flesh. Spirit gives birth to spirit. The human life is mortal. It's perishing. The new life is immortal. It's eternal. When we're in that realm of darkness, we are under condemnation. We were deserving of god's wrath for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god, the bible tells us. [00:54:47] (41 seconds)  #EternalLifeInChrist

See, the problem is that we're born into a sinful world under the control of Satan, and we ourselves have sinned. And because of that, as the bible says in Romans six twenty three, the wages of sin is death. But because of God's great love for us, he sent Jesus into the world to pay the price for our sins, to die in our place. So if you've sinned greatly in your life or sinned at all, you need a sacrifice, and Jesus is that sacrifice. [00:53:05] (32 seconds)  #JesusPaidItAll

But Jesus was telling Nicodemus, a very faithful law keeping Jew, that obeying the law is not enough. To see this kingdom, to enter this kingdom, you had to be born again, which shocked Nicodemus because he thought he was on his way to glory, to to heaven because of all his good works. The kingdom of god is god's rule, and those who enter his rule, enter to life and wholeness. But a person can only enter through a supernatural new birth brought about by the holy spirit. [00:52:20] (44 seconds)  #SpiritNotLaw

Paul said, if you declare with your mouth Jesus is lord, you're saying, yes. You're the lord. You're the king. You're the ruler of the universe. You're my lord. I believe that god raised you from the dead. I believe that in my heart. I call upon you. His grace will come upon you, and he will do the rest. And there's no other name. Peter says in acts four twelve, salvation is found in no one else. [01:00:41] (29 seconds)  #JesusIsLord