Nick at Night, Part One: Born Again

Today’s message is called “Nick at Night,” because it’s Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night. Who used to watch Nick at Night? Yeah, it’s cute. Alright — Nick at Night, Part One: Born Again. I know it’s a long title, but I like my titles.

This week’s study ties in with last week. If you remember, last week we learned about Jesus flipping some tables. Jesus walked into the temple and flipped some tables. And what was really interesting about that study is that it’s used by some people in our day to say, “Well, Jesus may be angry, or he may flip some tables in your life.” But I want you to notice: Jesus never spoke with anger or frustration toward someone who was seeking him. He only did that with religious people — people who assumed they were right, people who assumed, “I’m right with God because of what I do, because of how I was born.” Those are the people Jesus was really frustrated with.

So when Jesus flipped the tables, he did it in the temple, and he attacked the religiosity of making God about performance — “pay this, and then you’ll be accepted.” He didn’t like that at all. Jesus is establishing a new kingdom. I’m calling it the new grace order, where he is tearing down the whole religious system of the day. There was a way to know God — the religious system, the sacrifices, and the law — and he is saying, “We are done with that. We’re never going back to it. I am bringing something complete.” And he’s not even afraid to talk to anyone about it. He is very open: “I am going to tear down this entire system and make something new.” The Pharisees are watching and paying attention, and that’s what we’re going to get into today.

We’re going to see Jesus begin to explain to one of the curious men among the Pharisees — a man named Nicodemus — how dramatic and life-changing this new kingdom is. It’s on another level. It’s in another universe. It’s completely different. In our minds we grow up thinking church is one thing, but God’s kingdom is something completely different than what we expect. Usually it flips it completely upside down.

Now, there’s one thing we must know before we go any further, and that’s that back in this day the Jews had a big problem, and it was called Rome. Israel had been conquered by Rome, so they existed, but they were really just under the oppression of Rome. There were governors and soldiers, and everyone — all the Jews — believed God was going to deal with it somehow.

There were several groups who had different views of how God was going to deal with this problem. They all believed he would use the Messiah. They saw the promises in the Old Testament of a Messiah, and each group attached its own meaning to what that meant. Why did they think God would do this? Because they really believed they were God’s chosen people. That had been ingrained into their identity — a national identity: “We are God’s chosen people; we’re the saved ones.”

And Jesus comes on the scene and says, “I’m going to save you. I am the Messiah.” But he seems incredibly unconcerned with Rome. Why is that? They couldn’t understand it — it was so incompatible with what they expected. And he’s going to say something incredibly offensive to his hearers as he goes along. He’s going to tell them they’re not able to be saved in the way they were thinking — that it’s going to be impossible, that they’re going to need something totally new, something dramatic, something almost magical, something physically impossible.

All the thought they had, all the plans they had of how “I’m going to manipulate my life, I’m going to make sure I go to church all the time, I’m going to keep all the rules, and when I don’t keep the rules I’m going to do sacrifices, I’m going to be the person I’m supposed to be” — he’s saying all of that is not going to work. We need something else here.

You’ll notice as you follow along that last week I left two or three verses at the end of John chapter 2, because they actually didn’t fit with chapter 2 — they fit with what we’re talking about now. So I’m going to read those verses. John 2:23 says, “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs which he did. But Jesus did not commit himself to them, because he knew all men, and had no need that anyone should testify of man, for he knew what was in man.”

What does that mean? It’s kind of confusing. The question is: who’s judging whom here? All these people are saying, “Jesus, who are you? What are you going to tell me?” They judged all prophets who came on the scene — “Let’s see, is he following the law of Moses?” And Jesus is essentially saying, “You’re not judging me here. I know you. I’m the one who knows what’s in you.” Men are all trying to figure out Jesus — is he the Messiah? He says he’s the Messiah; let me try to determine it. And he’s not fitting into any of their boxes. That’s the crazy thing.

Let me give you some of the groups. You had the Zealots. Jesus actually recruited one of the Zealots to be one of his disciples. These were guys who were committed: “We should fight against Rome, use violence, we should all have guns and knives and cannons and throw the tea into the harbor.” They believed in violence — “we should fight with all our lives.”

Then you had the Essenes. The Essenes thought, “We should separate from Rome, from the world. We just need to be holy, go away and live in the desert, and be completely separated from Rome.”

Then you had the Sadducees. They believed, “We should partner with Rome. They’re not that bad; they’re just people like us. Let’s just work with them.”

You had the common people. They looked around and thought, “Well, this Jesus guy is better than Rome.” The common people loved Jesus. They saw his signs and said, “I like this Jesus guy. I like how he speaks.” They didn’t know what to do with Rome, but they thought Jesus was pretty awesome.

And then there were the Pharisees. They thought that if Jesus was the Messiah, he should destroy Rome with fire from heaven — because “we are more holy as Jews than they are, and they should all die.” They were very excited about the Messiah, but for one purpose: they thought the main job of the Messiah was to destroy Rome with supernatural power, or lead a revolt — however he wanted, but Rome needed to die. That was their big thing.

So Jesus knows how all these people think about him. That’s what that text means for us. He doesn’t care what all these people think about him. He’s here to save all these different people, and he knows his mission. He’s not going to be influenced by any of their plans or ideas. He has his own plan for how he’s going to bring salvation to them. And that’s what we talk about in chapter 3 — the plan Jesus actually has. Because it’s so much different than the Zealots, the Essenes, and the Pharisees. I’m warning you: it’s different.

So look at chapter 3: “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.'”

Again, the Pharisees were this ultra-religious sect of the Jews. They were the conservative response to God’s difficult judgment on Israel. Israel had been under God’s judgment for a long time — they had been cast out and exiled into Babylon — and there were a couple of responses to that. Some of the people said, “Well, let’s just become Babylonians, I guess.” Others said, “No, we need to remember our roots and go back.” The Pharisees came out of that movement to go back — kind of like an early Hebrew roots movement.

These Pharisees trusted in two things. First, they believed they were saved because they were born Jews. They literally believed Abraham stood at the gates of hell to make sure none of his children accidentally wandered there after they died — “No, no, no, you guys go here.” And when a Gentile would come, he’d send him the other way. That’s what they believed and taught. They believed they were saved by birth. I want you to remember that — their first birth. Remember that too.

The second thing they believed is that all Jews had to do good works, keep the law, and offer sacrifices to be accepted by God. So they believed you’re saved by birth, but you’re also saved by works. They were kind of confused about which one was more important, but they believed in both.

So of course they know about Jesus. They’ve been watching him, seeing him do miracles. It’s kind of hard to miss when someone is breaking the laws of physics every day as he goes about his life. And so Nick — we’ll call him Nick — Nicodemus has some honest questions for Jesus. He’s coming to Jesus asking, “Who are you? What is your identity? When are you going to kill all the Romans?” That’s basically his question. And he also wants to know, “Am I going to heaven? How do I get to God? Jesus, it sounds like you have some answers. I need to know — how does someone get to heaven?”

Have you ever wondered how someone gets to heaven? I had a conversation right before church started. Someone asked me, “How do I know for sure I’m going to heaven?” Well, it’s a good thing you came today, because Jesus is going to help us out with that. Nicodemus is thinking, “Jesus, if you came from God, then you must know how to do this whole God thing. So how do we do this whole God thing?”

Well, look at verse 3: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'” Unless one is born again — born from above — he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So Nicodemus comes for religious answers, and Jesus gives him none. Jesus gives him new birth. “What do I do?” Nicodemus is asking. And Jesus says, “Be born again.” “Well, how do I do that?” And he says, “Unless you’re born again, you can’t see the kingdom of God.”

The word “see” in the Greek means to be acquainted with by experience. I can tell someone how awesome the beach water park is — the lazy river, the great design, I love that place. But unless you experience it for yourself, you don’t really know. You haven’t seen it for yourself. With salvation in view, Jesus is talking about a real experience of regeneration — what we call salvation in the church, getting saved, being born again.

Here’s a vital cultural question I want us to think about: Is this everyone? Everyone in the world is commanded to be born again. Jesus says, if you want to get saved, you have to be born again. Well, what if someone likes the way they were born the first time? What if they say, “I don’t really need God. I like everything about me. I was born this way; I don’t need to be anything other than the thing that I am”? What do we do with this?

Well, it’s true — we were all born one way. All of us are descended from Adam, so we inherited something from Adam. Every single one of us is human, which means we all look generally the same. We have arms, we have legs. But we inherited something else, and that is sin — a rebellious nature that we were born in, a nature that rebels against God.

Romans teaches us we were born with this shared problem, and it’s not about one specific behavior. We’re not pointing out someone’s particular sin. All of us have one nature that expresses itself through all kinds of behaviors — pride, sexual immorality, whatever expression of self-living you want to name. It doesn’t matter which expression it is, because they’re all sinful. That’s what Jesus is addressing. It’s not about which sin you like or are attracted to; it’s that all men have a sin nature. And Jesus says, “That’s why I’ve come. That’s the new birth that needs to happen in every single person’s life.” Every person. Every single person.

Romans 5:12 says, “Sin entered the world through one man, and death spread to all.” That’s talking about Adam. It’s like he had a disease, and we’re all born with this genetic disease to sin. And Ephesians 2:3 says we were “by nature children of wrath.” Notice the first verse said “all men,” and this one says “we.” So we’re never saying we are better than anyone else, or that any human is better than another human — we’re all collectively in this same thing.

So when someone says, “I was born this way,” I agree. Yes — we were born with a fallen nature in Adam. And that’s not unique to any one sin; it’s universal. But one struggle doesn’t define our whole spiritual story. That’s what Jesus is bringing here — a new twist to our spiritual story. Just because you were born a certain way, it doesn’t prove how God is going to rewrite your destiny, rewrite your life. Even if there’s a temptation in our life, the Bible tells us what a new life is going to look like: it’s going to be Jesus’ own character written on your heart and mind, by being born from him — not the way we were born the first time.

The Bible constantly makes a division between who you are in Christ and how you feel — or whatever strategies you may have learned to cope with all the things you’ve experienced. We call that our flesh. We call those patterns flesh patterns — ways we learned to cope with pain and shame and our own stuff that we had to deal with growing up. Our flesh learned different ways to deal with that. Maybe we got angry and bitter and said, “I don’t want to deal with people anymore; people suck.” Or maybe you’re the opposite: “People are where I find my peace and healing,” so you get overly connected with and dependent on people, and you start manipulating people to give you love, trying to find your meaning in relationships, constantly sucking people dry to meet your needs — which again is not how it’s supposed to be.

So the Bible tells us there’s who you are in Christ — holy and loved, and if you’re born again, this is the reality of who you are — and then there’s the way we’ve learned to think. The Bible helps us discern which way we’re thinking. What Christ says is true about you is true, but our brain doesn’t always think the right way. Our brain doesn’t always work the right way. And we come to church and learn the Word of God so we can start putting into practice the way we’re supposed to believe and think about the truth Jesus has given us. As a believer, once you’re born again, you are no longer defined by what you’re tempted by; you’re defined by what Jesus says about you. That defines you. And that’s such good news.

So what is this new birth all about? Jesus is birthed in me, and I am birthed in him. We call this our union with Christ. Look at Galatians 2:20 — I’m going to move to the New Living Translation for the next few verses just to change it up: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

So there’s a specific new life Jesus is offering. This is a definition of what the new, born-again life looks like: it’s the life of Jesus living in my earthly husk of a body. We had a different life inside us — our self-life, the life that came from Adam, which was dead spiritually — and Jesus says, “I want to replace that life with a new life: me, myself, living in you.” That’s the truth about every single believer: Jesus himself lives in them.

Look at Galatians 4:19: “Oh, my dear children, I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives.” Paul is talking to his beloved church in Galatia. They’ve fallen away from Jesus toward legalism, they’ve become all religious, and they thought they were going to please God by all their rules. So Paul writes them this whole letter, and by the end he’s basically saying, “Guys, I love you so much, it’s almost like I’m giving birth — I’m in so much pain for you. What you need is Jesus to be born in you.” He wants to see the life of Jesus expressed in them and through them. That’s his greatest desire.

So being born again is almost like physical birth, but also completely not — it’s spiritual. The Bible talks a lot about being born again. The book of 1 Peter talks about being born again through God’s mercy. Look at 1 Peter 1:3: “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation.”

So being born again is the resurrection life of Jesus being placed into our bodies and living through us. That’s how this born-again experience is described. Peter calls it that — you could call it resurrection life. “Man, you’re different since you met Jesus.” “Yeah, because I have resurrection life inside me.” So we can actually have hope of what our life should look like and will be — an expectation of what we’re going to be as people. Not all the things we’ll do, because you’re going to fail, you’re going to trip up, you’re going to make mistakes. But you don’t have to ever not be loved or accepted, or not know that you’re a child of God, and have that safety and security of being a child of God. Those are the things every single believer can know — no matter how much of a failure you may be, you are loved and accepted. And that’s the identity of someone who has resurrection life.

A little later in that same chapter, 1 Peter 1:22 says, “You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth” — not a law, but the truth of what Jesus did — “so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.” Is this a law, or is it a description of our identity? He’s not giving us a new law. It’s like a new law, but it’s a law the way “you’re a bird, you need to fly” is a law. Is that a law? It’s more of an identity thing. Birds fly. So if a bird doesn’t fly, it’s a penguin. Or a turkey. (Turkeys can fly sometimes.)

He says, “Love each other deeply with all your heart, for you have been born again — but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever, because it comes from the eternal, living Word of God.” That’s amazing. Our new life, our resurrection life, our eternal life started the moment you believed Jesus died for you on the cross. The moment you believed, your eternal life started. The clock started right then. And it will never end.

It mentions a couple of things that are true about us. Number one, we’re forgiven of what? All our sins. Guys, I tell you this every week, and I’m going to keep telling you: you are forgiven of all sins the moment you believe — past, present, and future. God knows what he’s signing up for when he says, “You’re going to be born again as my child.” You cannot lose your salvation by sinning. You can’t. Because that sin was already forgiven.

Now, what does this mean for our lives? How many of you do this: every time you sin and you get that conviction from the Holy Spirit, how many of you say, “God, forgive me again”? We do that — but we’ve got to stop. We have to understand that God is saying, “I’ve already forgiven you guys. We’re good. I don’t need you to ask and beg and grovel for forgiveness. You have forgiveness. Now, what you did was stupid and not according to your identity. So you need to repent” — which means change your mind, change your behavior so it lines up with who you really are, your new identity that I’ve given you. “I’ve already forgiven you. We’re so past that. Just come — let me pick you up, and let’s keep walking.” That’s how it works with God.

That’s why it’s so vitally important to understand you are fully forgiven. And you can test yourself: Do I really believe this? Or am I constantly saying, “God, forgive me” again and again and again? And then you have pastors teaching you, “Did you ask God to forgive you today?” That’s not preaching the gospel. That’s preaching a man-made, religious, law-based, performance-driven religion — not the gospel. Be careful who you listen to. Be careful that you’re listening to the gospel, and that you’re reading the gospel.

So you’re forgiven of everything. And now Jesus loves you, and he’s going to live through you — how? By showing you how to love other people. That’s how he expresses his own life through you: always by love. Do you see what he said? “So now you must show love to each other as brothers and sisters; love each other with all your heart.” The Word of God is like a seed planted in your heart that grows into this new life that just loves everybody.

I love that in this church we have a lot of loving people. If I go to get a tattoo at Peggy’s, Russell is going to be a big ball of love — you all know that. There’s so much love that God is working through us, and yet there’s so much more we hold back from him that we could give. We could be generous in our love to all kinds of people. So that’s how Peter talks about this new life.

Now let’s look at James. James speaks of God bringing us forth by the word of truth. Look at James 1:18: “He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.” So being born again works like this — it’s really simple: you hear a word, and you believe it. That’s how it works. The moment you believe, you are born again. And guess what? God even helps you to believe it.

So if you have said in your heart, “I believe” — not just in your mind, and definitely not just with your mouth, but in your heart, “I truly believe Jesus was sacrificed for me, I’m forgiven by his blood” — then you are born again, and his Spirit dwells in you. That’s what happens. It is by believing, and believing only. It’s literally that simple.

Titus, another letter Paul wrote, speaks of this in the language of washing. Titus 3:5 says, “He saved us, not because of the righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us a new birth and new life through” — going to church all the time and reading the Bible so much? Oh, wait, it didn’t say that. Nope. It says, “through the Holy Spirit.”

Well, how does this work? It’s confusing, right? We’re going to spend some time with Nicodemus over the next couple weeks, because he’s going to wrestle with this. And it’s interesting, because he thinks of things in an earthly sense, and Jesus is going to try to help him understand what the Holy Spirit is like. When you’re born again, the Holy Spirit has drawn you, the Bible says. So if you have it in your heart, “I want to believe in God, I want to believe in Jesus,” you didn’t put that desire in there. You didn’t figure this out yourself. The Holy Spirit said, “I have chosen you, and I love you, and I’m going to put this in your heart.” You may wrestle with this. You may spend a long time saying, “I don’t know if I believe.” But just know that God put that initial desire inside you — “maybe I want to believe.” He’s drawing you already.

2 Corinthians 5:17 says it like this: “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person” — kind of like being born again — “the old life is gone, and the new life has begun.” The old life is gone. That’s the other thing about being born again: the old life is gone. And here’s how it practically plays out. All the old sinful things you used to do before you were a Christian — when you try to do them again, guess what? They’re not fun anymore. They may be fun for a little bit of time, but your soul, your heart, cannot rejoice in them anymore, because that old part of you that loved sin got nailed to the cross and died. And the new part of you that loves righteousness and always wants to do the will of your heavenly Father — it hates sin. It recoils against it. We call that the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t leave you when you sin. The Holy Spirit says, “Ew, gross, why are you taking a bath in mud? I’m not going to leave you. I love you, but we don’t do sin. My Father is righteous, and now you are righteous — because guess what? I’ve already forgiven you of all your sins, remember? So you’re righteous. You’re just messing around in the mud right now. You don’t need to do that to be happy. I know your brain’s telling you that you need to do that to be happy. You don’t. You need me to be happy, and I have given you everything you need to be happy.”

Look at Galatians 6:15: “It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not. What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” This one is really cool. Circumcision was like a law they would keep — an outward expression. They cut off a little piece of the body to express that they were a good person on the inside. Well, “if you come to our church, you do this; if you really want to follow God, you’ll do that” — these outward expressions of what was supposedly going on inside. And what does the Bible say? Stop doing that stuff. It doesn’t matter. It literally doesn’t matter. Stop thinking that God looks on the outside of you to determine whether you’re a good person. He’s not looking at the outside. He’s only going to judge one thing: are you born again? Are you new on the inside?

I ask people, “Are you going to heaven?” And you can tell everything by the answers. Some people say, “I go to church.” Stop it — that’s outward. That’s like circumcision. “Well, I do my best to follow the Ten Commandments.” “Well, I was baptized.” Guys, none of those things matter for that question. They’re all outward. Now, they’re good things — we can talk about what they are and what they express — but as far as “are you going to heaven,” there’s one answer: “I believe in Jesus Christ. I believe he died on the cross for me. I believe he rose from the dead and shares his new life with me and lives inside me.” Do you believe that? Then you are saved, you are forgiven, you have new life. Amen.

“Well, I don’t feel a lot like a new creation.” Yeah — because it doesn’t happen in your feelings. “Well, I don’t know if I understand my new-creation life.” Yeah — because it didn’t happen in your brain. Where does the new creation happen? In the spirit. The spirit is the invisible part of you — like an organ, like your liver or your heart, but the invisible organ that connects directly to God. It’s our eternal spirit. That’s how we experience God — that we alone, of all his creation, have an eternal spirit.

Look at Ephesians 4:22. He gives us some instruction: “Throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on the new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy.”

So as a Christian, this is our life: you get a choice every day. People who are not yet born again do not have a choice. They have one source of life, and it’s the flesh. They have to get life however they can find it, and usually they choose sinful things. But for us, we get this choice to throw off our old way of thinking — because the old man has already been crucified. Our old nature already died with Jesus on the cross. So we have to throw off this old way of thinking that’s already dead.

You know what someone’s doing who’s carrying around something that’s already dead? It’s like carrying around a carcass. Just carrying it around with you. Why do that? It smells, it’s disgusting, and it has nothing to do with your new life. That’s what our old way of thinking is. When we return to sinful living after we’re born again, it’s because we’re just carrying that old way of thinking around with us. But Paul says, just throw it off. Drop it and walk away. Back away slowly.

It’s all about the new life we have. We drag this old life along by keeping our old thinking patterns: “The only way for me to get through this is to anger my way through it. The only way for me to get through this is to drink my way through it. The only way for me to get through this is to get people to love me more.” All these things we choose that are fleshly patterns. So he says we just have to renew our minds and attitudes into what? Into our new nature, which is already true. What’s true about you? You’re holy, you’re righteous, you’re good, you are new, you are totally what God wants you to be in the spirit. And we just have to convince our brain — we just have to start thinking that this is actually true about us.

Nicodemus is this respected religious leader, and he acknowledges that Jesus is doing all these signs. But Jesus bypasses his whole question of “how do I get closer to God?” and answers the deeper question: how does someone enter the kingdom of heaven? How does someone see it? And he doesn’t answer Nicodemus by saying, “try harder, follow the law, make better New Year’s resolutions.” None of that matters. He says simply, “You must be born again.”

Nicodemus is thinking in religious categories: “How can I do the right thing to get God’s approval in my life?” And Jesus reframes everything he’s thinking, saying, “You need a new origin. You need God’s Spirit to give you a spirit-life that actually works inside you.” So being born again is what happens when God gives you new life from above. It’s not something you make up or work up or improve yourself into; it’s not repeating certain words or mantras. It’s a spiritual birth you receive. And he says whoever believes receives this eternal life.

Fast forward — you guys know we’re going to get to John 3:16. But look at verse 15: “Whoever believes in him will have eternal life.” So new birth — being born again — is God’s response to anyone who will put their faith in Jesus. What does that mean? Do you believe in what Jesus accomplished? Who Jesus was? Do you believe Jesus was God? Because he was. That he came from God, was God’s Son? He was. That he gave himself and was crucified for your sins as your substitute? Because he was. That he rose again from the dead, showing that God accepted his sacrifice? Because he did. And that he wants to share his resurrection life with you? The gospel is very simple: Do you believe Jesus died and rose for you? If you do, you are born again.

Ephesians 2:8-9 says it this way: “God saved you by his grace when you” — went to church? It doesn’t say that, does it. “When you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift of God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.” I love it — it’s always a free gift.

So again, here’s our simple breakdown: you are born again when you hear God’s truth about Jesus and you trust it, believe in it. Then you receive his life by faith, and the Spirit makes you completely new. The Spirit takes the old nature out of you, transports it through time, and puts it in Jesus Christ’s body on the cross as he’s nailed there, and it’s killed there — dead. I want you to see that when Jesus died on the cross, it was you. It was your old nature that died with him. So now what’s your new nature? God takes the Holy Spirit — Jesus rises from the dead — and he shares that resurrection life with all of us. That’s what replaces what God took out. We’re not left empty; he replaces it with the Holy Spirit. You’re washed, you’re set apart, your whole life is set apart to serve God — morning and night. The first thing you do when you wake up and the last thing you do before bed, and every word and every motive in between — it’s all for God’s glory.

And you will never be happy doing anything for yourself ever again. Our brain thinks we’ll be happy, but we learn as we grow in Jesus that we’re just never going to be happy that way. It doesn’t work that way, because our new identity is Jesus living through us. That’s how we become a new race, a new humanity, a new being. Nothing about our old life is supposed to continue. Even this very body that is falling apart is going to eventually die and be replaced with a new one. It’s all new life. Eventually it will all line up — your mind, your will, and your emotions will line up perfectly with the truth God says about you.

Now I want to tie one thing back to our beginning. We mentioned the Zealots and the Essenes. The gospel says, “I’m going to fix things — but not with your efforts, like the Zealots.” The Zealots say, “We’ve got to fight!” And Jesus says, “Yeah, I’m going to fix you, but it’s not through fighting.” And it’s not through separating from the world like the Essenes — “I don’t go to those parties, I don’t go to those restaurants.” He says, “Maybe you shouldn’t go, but that’s not where life is going to come from.” Don’t be like the Essenes. And don’t be like the Sadducees — going along with the world doesn’t work either. Jesus says, “I don’t want you going with the world. Don’t try to avoid the world, but don’t say, ‘Let’s get as worldly as we can be, let’s party’ either.” That’s not it. And it’s not like the common people, just going with the flow of whatever’s happening because you have no strength — God’s not saying that either. And he definitely isn’t saying, like the Pharisees, that life is found through religious traditions and efforts and legalism and law. Jesus doesn’t use a single one of these identities. He only gives you a brand-new identity called new birth, where everything lines up with him and his character.

So today I just want to ask you this one question: Do you believe in what Jesus has done? If you do, God put that inside you, and because you believe, the Holy Spirit has made you alive again in him. If you don’t yet believe, it’s okay — but you must believe. Jesus says all men must believe. This is the only way. There is no other way to the Father. There’s no other way to heaven, no other way to have sin forgiven. This is the only way. God has prescribed one prescription. It’s one prescription, and it’s this: Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. I’m going to be as clear as possible: believe in Jesus Christ, and he will set you free.

Let’s pray. Jesus, I bring all these hearts that are so precious to you before you. Lord, everyone’s going through different things. Some are sick, some have been in the hospital this week, some are doing just great. And there’s a lot of confusion about what the future holds for all of us. But Jesus, we can know that our life is in you, and you will be in us — you are in us when we believe. And Father, I pray for any person here who has yet to believe: I pray that today they would make the decision to believe that Jesus Christ, you are God, and you became man and gave yourself as a substitute for our sin. And I pray that everyone in this room, and everyone who hears us on the internet, and everyone we talk to this week and share this gospel with across this entire world — Father, please save more people. Please bring people to know your Son, Jesus Christ. In your name we pray. Amen.