The new birth - A new way of seeing the world

I invite you to go back to the Gospel according to Saint John. You know what happens, that many times when one works on the word of the Lord, that word kind of opens up in front of oneself and one sometimes enters thinking, wow, will there be enough material here for a complete sermon, a text of scripture? And one jumps on faith and then when one begins to expose the word that word magically opens up in front of one and one discovers wonderful levels and layers of complexity. And that happens to me many times when I enter into the word of the Lord.

Last Sunday I know we talked about Nicodemus and his encounter with Jesus and before that we had talked about the Samaritan woman. And also about their encounter, their dialogue with Jesus, and how the Lord was leading these two characters, who in fact are very similar to each other, although they would seem totally different, but they are very similar in their internal spiritual makeup.

And both were equally removed from a true experience with Christ and a truly deep and personal relationship with God. Nicodemus ironically for his religious condition and for his respectable life and steeped in the things of religion and his good behavior, his prestige before society, but that paradoxically served as an obstacle to what Christ represented and what he had to do to enter into a vital relationship with Jesus. His religion was a stumbling block to him and the Lord confronted him.

The Samaritan woman with her sinful life, her sensual life, there had been 6 men in her life, and who knows if there were other temporary relationships, a woman of dubious reputation, that not even the women of her villages wanted to relate to her apparently. She was also estranged from Christ partly because of her sin, about which the Lord confronted her, and partly also because of her own religion of Samaritan, of Samaria, her attachment to the story of her ancestors that Jacob's well, that the religion Samaritan that was different from the Jewish religion and then if so, which religion is the true one? And she wanted to hide behind all that, like many people do. There are so many religions, how do I know which is the true religion? There are so many exalted men like Muhammad, Buddha, Confucius and Jesus so why do I have to adopt Jesus only?

And many times people also try to take refuge in those things and find an excuse not to confront the person of Jesus and the Lord also tried, did not try, confronted them both in different ways, as we saw last Sunday. He confronted Nicodemus with a truth that I am going to focus on a little more now, and also the Samaritan woman with her sin and with the fact that there is only one way, they are not different, if she is a Jew, if she is a Samaritan, God seeks to those who adore him in spirit and in truth, and that truth is me, Jesus told him.

Well, there are many things there, but I want to focus now on a principle, a concept that is enclosed here and how to zoom into that so that we can explore it a little more, and it is that concept of the new birth. You have heard of being born again. How many have heard of being born again? Everyone. A new birth, born again Christians. What does that imply and what does that mean? I want to focus on that a little bit more this morning.

Before that let me read again a little bit of the text of chapter 3 of John so that we can be well rooted in what I want to focus on. Chapter 3 verse 1 says:

“There was a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a leader among the Jews, an important man, he came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher,” – You already know what what we said about… the first serious mistake he made – “because no one can do these signs that you do if God is not with him.” – Look at the language that reduces the status of Jesus. God is with him, he has come from God as a teacher. Jesus cuts him short and changes the subject completely, does not change it but immediately takes him where he needs to go – Jesus said to him, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom. of God."

Notice there this call to a different experience than what Nicodemus thinks he has had. It is not recognizing me as a good man, a teacher, an exceptional rabbi, it is not about that, it is that you, Nicodemus, have a different experience from the one you have had up to now. And there is that key text of all scripture, “Truly, truly, I tell you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

For Nicodemus this is something so radical and so revolutionary, so unlike anything he has ever heard in his life, that he does not understand the spiritual language of Jesus. And he believes that Jesus is telling him how a man has to go back into his mother's womb and be born again? Evidently the Lord is using figurative language, a language of the realm of the spirit. And interestingly because of Nicodemus's inability to get in tune with that spiritual language that Jesus is speaking, Nicodemus gives himself away and shows his essential ignorance.

The fact that as a purely theological, rational man, he is not capable of processing the deepest truths of the spirit and that is why the Lord says to him, “How is it that you, being a teacher of Israel, do not understand this language that I am speaking? ” Brothers, you know that there are people in seminaries, there are priests, there are pastors, there are theologians who cannot use or understand the language of the spirit. You talk to them about spiritual warfare, for example, and they don't even understand dad, they don't know what demons are, they don't believe in demons, they don't believe in principalities and powers that affect the lives of men. You talk to them about supernatural healing and they tell you that's why we have doctors, they talk about common grace and other generic things that doctors are enough and God doesn't heal that way, he did it at that time for reasons, etc., and They don't understand that language.

You talk to them about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and they tell you that this was for apostolic times but that now that we have the canon of scripture already closed, we don't need those experiences. You talk to them about the infallible Bible... then, you talk to them, there are people who know a lot about the Bible, they are even teachers in seminaries but again, these mysteries, supernatural healing, spiritual warfare, prophecy, they don't understand, they don't know about prophecy They believe that these are lucubrations from a past time and that must be left over there to one side because nobody knows what it means, etc. I could mention to you many things of which there are a number of people who are religious but have no...

And many times we even come to church, we listen to sermons but our understanding is dull, that means that it is not sharp, it is rough, it is clumsy, because we have not exercised that inner part. When one has a true knowledge of Jesus Christ, it is incredible, but one's understanding of many things opens up, and one can understand things that one did not understand before.

I have told you about that experience that I had many years ago, 30-something years ago, when I was in graduate school and I had a personal conversion experience even though I had already known the Gospel for a long time, and I remember that it was like someone had taken my Bible and blew on it and a lot of dust came out. I started sneezing all over because it was like the Bible had opened up to me for the first time and the joy I felt from reading the word, from eating it, from reading it with a new urgency and a new joy, because God was like it had opened my eyes to the word, because when you have that experience of a new birth, layers of complexity fall away.

And that is why there are people who do not have theological education, or do not have much education, period, and know more about the Bible than theologians, who have studied many archaic and classical languages and have studied concepts but the secret of the word. That is why in the Christian life it is not a matter of how much you have studied to know the mysteries of God, it is how much experience you have had with the person of Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. In that, brothers, we are clear, with all that I appreciate knowledge and study and books, I can tell you that practically all my life has been trying to get rid of much of the knowledge that I have to be able to enter into the true knowledge of the word of God.

Because many times many books drive us crazy, as they told Pablo. Although I love knowledge so much, don't get me wrong, but many times too much reason can hinder our understanding of the simple things of the Gospel. And maybe we can talk a little bit about that. But again, I don't want to get too lost in random, secondary stuff.

Let's talk a little bit about what are some of the specific elements of a new birth. When the Lord says to Nicodemus, "Truly, truly, I tell you, unless one is born again..." born again, what does Jesus mean? And how does the Bible view this experience of being born again? What happens when a man, a woman is born again? I'm going to give you some specific elements.

First, when you are born again you receive a new nature. You receive a new constitution within you. You may not realize it, you are still as normal as you always were, or as intelligent or as beautiful as you were. Your life may go on without any problems, but when you have a personal encounter with Jesus, when you consciously invite Christ into your life, a constitutional change takes place within you. A new nature is imparted to you. You are no longer a mere biological being, you now become a son, a daughter of God.

The divine nature becomes part of your being. The Holy Spirit enters you. New spiritual components begin to beat within you. God equips you with certain knowledge, certain skills, certain gifts that are there already beating within you. You are pregnant or pregnant. The life of God has been born within you. A new nature. Something has happened inherently within you.

Look, for example, at how Second Corinthians says, chapter 5, verse 17: "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature." Say with me, new creature. It is a new creation. If you are in Christ, if you have experienced the new birth that comes through knowing him, receiving him, you are a new creature. It says, "Old things have passed away, behold, all things have become new." It says here also, "and all this comes from God."

Now, look, Paul is speaking in two ways. You are talking about something that is a real fact, and something that will become more and more a reality in you as you get to know Jesus more and he is taking on more parts of yourself. That is, in the eyes of God you are a new creature.

Do you know, for example, that when you were conceived in your mother's womb, at the very moment that there was that moment of gestation that life was born in the woman's womb, all the components that are going to be part of it are already there. of his personality, or rather of his biological constitution, the color of his hair, the height of his body, many temperamental dispositions included. Psychologists are discovering how mysterious is the relationship between character and temperament and actions and what happens genetically in the human being, his neurology, his biology.

A number of very interesting things are being discovered, but the fact is that in the genetic code of a human being there are all the diseases of which you can, or most, because some are environmental or whatever, you develop them by the environment or what you eat, what you drink, but a number of genetic things that are inherent in you, are already there, the type of nose you have, the color of your eyes, a number of things, the size of his hands, his ears, how are they going to be. We would like to have a different constitution, I know, but it is already there, since you are born, since you are conceived, and it also happens with the new birth. The life of God is latent within you. You have a new identity and then it is a matter... what is in you, that new nature develops and becomes a reality, but it is already there. You are a new creature and you are also a creature in the making, as is any new life.

What does John 1, 12 and 13 say? "But to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." before you were a son of perdition, a son of the world, now you are a son of God, and you say, "which are not begotten - there is that word of biology, new life, new birth, when you beget something you give it life. – Then it says, “which were not born of blood nor of the will of the flesh.” In other words, being a child of God is not something that occurs simply through a biological or physical operation, or something that you decide by your will, no, I am going to do this, I am going to change, I am going to do that. No.

“It is not done by the will of flesh and blood, nor by the will of man – that is, no man does this or any approach of a man to a woman, nothing like that – but of God.”

Something very similar to what happens when the angel Gabriel tells Mary that she asks him, "Well, how will this be that without being a wife I am going to have a child?" and the angel tells him, "The spirit of the Lord will come upon you and rest, and the holy being that will be born of you will be the Son of God."

In other words, when God rests on Mary, as he rests on the chaotic creation, the universe in chaos, in the book of Genesis, when God rests he brings something new, a different life. And that which was born, that Son of God, Jesus, through the begetting work of God, let's say, is what also happens in us when we receive Christ as Lord and savior, a new birth is given within us. The life of God is engendered in us and we are no longer mere biological beings with whom God cannot have dealings, because being only biological God cannot deal with us in the way that when we now have an identity as children of God through of the new birth.

So, we are born neither of the flesh nor of the will of man, but directly of God. then when we are born again we receive a new nature. You are a new creature. Always say that, I am a new creature, confess it, even if the devil wants to tell you otherwise. Even if you act many times and yell at the one who got in front of you on the road, I am a new creature. Amen. When you yell at the boys more than you want and say a few words that escape you, I am a creature. Live that, confess it and live that way. Amen.

When you want to act in the way that a man or a woman works in the flesh, say, I am a new creature, and fight so that this life of God becomes a reality in you. So, new birth is received a new nature that is beating within us.

Number 2, when we are born again we receive a new way of thinking and processing the world. We are given a capacity to see the world in a different way than we did before. We have a capacity now to think spiritually, to process the things of God.

The Bible talks a lot about the natural man and the spiritual man. And the Bible says that the natural man cannot know the things of God because they have to be understood spiritually. That was what Nicodemus could not do.

Let's come to First Corinthians, chapter 2, verses 10 through 16. Paul says, "But God revealed them to us by the spirit because the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God." That spirit of God that is in us now searches the things that are of God. “For who among men knows the things of a man except the spirit of man that is in him? In the same way, no one knew the things of God except the spirit of God that is in us. And we have not received from the world but the spirit that comes from God so that we may know the things that God has granted us, which we also speak, not with words taught by human wisdom but with those that the spirit teaches, accommodating the spiritual to the spiritual. But the natural man does not perceive the things that are from the spirit of God because for him they are madness and he cannot understand them because they have to be discerned spiritually.”

You can continue reading that passage. In other words, when you have the life of God within you, it enables you to understand the world and the creation and the things of God in a different way. It does not matter that you have not gone to the seminary, it does not matter that you do not have a high education, by knowing Christ and having Christ in your life, God gives you the ability to understand his word. When you go to the word of God, first ask the Lord for understanding. He knows that you are entering magical territory and that when you ask the Lord, tell him, “Father, I know that you have given me that wisdom and now I am going to read your word. Open it in front of me.” And that word is going to open up because it is the spirit of God within you searching what God has said is in that Bible. And then that spirit of God within you can scrutinize and knows what is written there in code, many times, and it will bring it to your understanding and it will open the scriptures for you.

So approach the word of God with all confidence and know something, that you have a capacity that other people who do not know Christ do not have and it is the capacity to understand the word of the Lord, the word of God is going to open before of you, it will be alive and effective and it will be its work within you.

In other words, a new way of thinking and processing the world. That is what God has given you and it is within you, cultivate that gift and develop it through use and practice.

Thirdly, the new birth allows you to move towards, let's put it this way, the adoption of a child's mind, an innocent mind, the mind of a child. The new birth gives you a mind that is capable of coming into contact with God's mysteries and divine promises that require childlike faith, because if your faith is too sophisticated and too mixed up with rational matters, it is going to be an obstacle. for you.

That's why this man, Nicodemus, with all his knowledge, his great sophistication, all his self-righteous studies cannot get into this idea of being born again. Our daughter Abigail and Miguel recently went to Disney World with our grandchildren and they continually sent us photos of their entire experience. We had a virtual experience of Disney World, and looking at some of the photos, for example, our little granddaughter Elisa, who is barely 1 year old and something, and seeing her fascination with Mickey Mouse, with Pluto, with Donald Duck, it's incredible how they were watching, they were touching Mickey Mouse, his look of fascination with these characters.

We see them and… ah, this is a doll, but those children are capable of entering into magic. They are truly in a castle and they are meeting a princess with her magic wand and you can enjoy the mystery of life. And Caleb dressed as a pirate with a very serious face, very fierce, he was living his pirate experience. And many times it is what the Lord Jesus Christ says, for us to be able to participate in some of the promises of the word of God, for example, healing, liberation, we have to become like children, brothers.

Much of the problem with us is that we are unbelievers and I would like to tear off this membrane that covers my understanding many times so that I can see the things of the Gospel with all innocence and believe that it is possible to walk on water. Peter had that experience for a moment, he believed Jesus when he told him, "Stand up and walk on the water," but when he saw himself walking, his rational experience began to tell him, that is not possible. The laws of physics don't allow that, and a demonic chorus of winds and sounds and waves arose and they convinced him that it wasn't possible, and what happened? He began to sink immediately, because his mind did not allow him to believe in the miracle.

And that is what the new birth gives us in potentiality, and we must continue. I am continually struggling in my life, Father, help me to be simpler every day, like a child to be able to believe that everything is possible. Who believes everything is possible. Believe with the faith of a child. If God said so, so it is.

Someone has said, not only do I believe that the whale swallowed Jonah, but if God had said that Jonah swallowed the whale, I would believe it too. Can we believe like this, brothers? Can we return to the faith of a child, to that childish wisdom that is the wisdom of heaven?

That's why I believe the Bible says, love believes everything, expects everything. Because it is that when we have the love of God in us we can believe God. The word says that the Lord found himself in a neighborhood and could not do many miracles in his own village, where he was born, it says that he could not do much... And that is one of the most mysterious passages in the Bible, he could not do many miracles there because of the disbelief of the people who are there. The same Son of God is limited in his ability to perform miracles in his own village by the unbelief of the people.

Do you know why? Because when he comes to Bethlehem and people see him, they say, but isn't this Jesusito the one who was walking around with short pants and a wheel and a stick turning the wheel and now he says he's the Son of God? their minds did not allow them to believe that this creature that had walked around was the life of God beating from that little body and that one day his deity was going to explode in a manifested way. And they couldn't believe it, they couldn't get away from what their mind was telling them, how can this natural man, this little boy truly be the Son of God, the savior of the world? and then that stopped the ability of God.

I believe, brothers, that much of the problem in the 21st century with the church, if we believed more we would see more miracles. I think our problem is that we are too sophisticated. We have watched too much National Geographic on television, we have read too much magazines, the internet has given us access to so much knowledge. Here we all have knowledge that a scientist did not have in the first century, let me tell you, we are talking about penicillin, space, galaxies, Mars and the system...

In those days, if you had said something like that the planets revolve, that we are in the solar system and I don't know what, and that there are 9 planets, you would have been a genius. And you say, wow, why couldn't I have been there at that time? But that's how it is. Brothers, we have such a large layer of intellectuality in us that this life of God cannot be manifested in us. It's in there but it's kind of suppressed and there are things that suppress it and one of them is that false sophistication. But I believe that the simple man who has had an experience with Christ has the capacity to see life as a child and that is within you.

And I ask the Lord, Lord, help us to fight so that what we already are, what we have becomes a reality. Give us a mind like a child, or help us to enter that mind that you have already given us. Because the Bible also says, the Lord told his disciples, you have to become like a child, Matthew 18, 1 to 4.

“Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? They asked Jesus and calling a child Jesus put him in the midst of them, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a child like this in my name welcomes me.”

The Lord identified with that faith as a child. And we have to ask you, Lord, help us to enter into that faith that you have given us as an inheritance through the new birth. You have the ability, I have the ability, let's fight, let's not stay with that false sophistication because the reality is that God has put in us the ability to believe and we are going to ask the Lord to unleash that gift in us to believe like a child .

So that natural birth, a new spiritual nature, a new way of thinking, a new supernatural birth. A new way of thinking, adopting the mind of a child.

Another thing that truly entails the new birth, a truly born again person is the acquisition of a new identity in Christ. And these are things that you have to ask yourself. Why don't I have them? Is it because I do not have them in itself or because I am suppressing them or because I am not cultivating them as a gift that God has given me? But we must be concerned because these are things that are the hallmarks of that new nature that is in a child of God and we can see it throughout all the scriptures.

The acquisition of a new identity in Christ. Let's look at Galatians 2:20. The Apostle Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and what I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. .”

It is a new identity in Christ. I believe that one of the things that many people do not understand is that entering this new birth implies a change of identity, a change of person. Many of us enter the Kingdom of God and believe that we can continue to do the same things, believe the same things, practice the same bad habits. For many of us entering the Gospel is like simply changing clothes, changing clothes, but it is not like that. It is putting on a new identity, we are no longer members of this world. the world is dead to us and we are dead to the world.

Many of the things that we believed and that we considered fair and ethical and good have to change. Many people say, how is it possible that God asks me to do this, or that God condemns that person who is so decent, and why doesn't he live and let live, etc. And these are reasonings of a human, cultural, rational carnal identity, but God calls us to adopt a new and different identity. That is part of being a new creature, like a baby that is just about to develop, it is a variant that gradually develops its personality, something new, it is a world to explore.

And likewise when we know Christ there are many things that we have to abandon. And many people don't want to get rid of those things and so they remain clinging. I hear them, so many different things and they come to church and don't go into that experience because they're stuck with one way of looking at themselves and their culture, how they've processed it.

The word says in Romans chapter 12, "Do not be conformed to this century but be transformed by the renewing of your understanding."

When we enter into the Gospel many of the things of our culture, this culture that is so lost and whose values are so different from the values of the Kingdom of God, we have to be willing to put all those things aside and enter that new identity that God gives us as new creatures.

Number 5. A new birth implies a total rejection of the past. That ties in with what I said above. As it says, the old things, behold, all are made new. A total repudiation of the past. This means that many of the things that give us pleasure and that we consider very important to us, our reputation, our money, our profession, our friends, past practices, all that, have to stay behind and we have to adopt a new form. to behave, to live, to process the world.

Let's turn to Philippians chapter 3, verses 4 through 9. Paul is talking about his former status as a Pharisee, as an important man in the Jewish world and he speaks, he says, "I also have something to trust in the flesh, if anyone thinks that You have something to trust in the flesh, I more, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the lineage of Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, in terms of Pharisee law, in terms of zeal for my faith I was a persecutor of the church, as for righteousness which is the law, I was blameless…” – Imagine practically how perfect Paul apparently was and how he valued all those things of his self-righteous Hebrew identity.

But look at what he says, verse 7, “But whatever things were gain to me, I have counted them loss for Christ's sake. And certainly I still estimate all things as loss due to the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost everything and count it as rubbish to win Christ.” Hallelujah!

Brothers, how many of us can say like that, that all those things that we consider important, that sometimes caustic sense of humor that hurts people because it makes fun of others, that often abusive attitude that allows you to exercise superiority with a hurtful word about someone, your social position, the friends you have, your academic pedigree, your aspirations to have a big house and a Mercedes Benz in the marquee and all that, those things that you consider valuable, are you willing to leave everything for Christ? Are you willing to consider it rubbish to know, he says, Christ and the power of his resurrection and the participation of his sufferings? Are you willing to leave everything that you considered important and valuable, sacrifice it and change it for a new identity that God gives you?

Ephesians 4:22. May these passages stay in our spirit. "As for the past way of living, put off the old man that is corrupted according to deceitful desires and renew yourselves in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

That new man, that new creature, that is what God calls us. And we have to be in perpetual transformation, renewal, change so that that creature that is within us that God has declared that new birth becomes a reality in our lives. It cannot be given until we are willing to repudiate everything, even our family if necessary.

A lot of people know that if they stop doing this, if they stop going to the club, if they stop doing what their friends do, they're not going to be as interesting to them anymore. They are not willing to sacrifice that and therefore remain barren and dead before God, because the new birth implies a repudiation of the past and a complete 180 degree turn. And let me tell you something brothers, I think that for many of us entering the Gospel is like we have seen it like, I don't know, it's like something that from time to time we throw a piece of junk at the Lord, a little thing and many of We come and we are in the Gospel for years and years and years and we do not change much in our habits, our practices, our thoughts.

And what the Bible tells me is that when a person has experienced the new birth it is a repudiation of many things and we have to get to that point in our life where we are willing to sacrifice everything and give everything to the Lord in order to experience the life of God within us. It's a change.

Many of us have not experienced, we have not made that change and we are still with one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom, and that is not possible. We have to change radically, we have to make an about face, as they say, a change. Have you experienced that change in your life? Brothers, God truly wants us to be a church radically committed to the Kingdom of God. And if you have not yet experienced that change in your life, if you are still a little bit, let's say the word, if the world is too alive within you, ask the Lord to complete this work. Give it up and resolve that matter as soon as you can in your life and give yourself totally to the Lord.

Now, what is it that makes all these changes possible? What is it that makes possible a new nature, a new way of thinking and processing the world, a childish mind that can believe anything to the Lord, dying to ourselves and acquiring a new identity in Christ, that we can totally repudiate our past and acquire a new identity in Christ? What makes all of this possible? An encounter with Jesus, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And that was what the Lord told Nicodemus, later in their conversation he showed Nicodemus that he had to set his sights on the Son of God, that it was not enough to simply recognize Jesus as one more teacher, that he she had to invite Christ into her life and recognize him as truly the savior of the world. He had to be willing to give up his identity as a Pharisee, as an important man, as a religious man and see Jesus not as a mere rabbi but as the Messiah of whom the scriptures spoke and that he had to be willing for his fellow Pharisees to see him. they would put him aside, they would reject him so that he could truly know Christ and experience that salvation that Christ can give.

And the Lord invited him, as you remember, we said last Sunday, to fix his gaze on him, to fix his gaze on Jesus and it was not just any gaze, that is what that little choir says, a gaze of faith is what can save the sinner It is a look of despair, it is a look when you realize that yes, your life may be very adequate, very beautiful, but if you do not know Christ you are heading towards a path of perdition. And Christ came specifically so that no one is lost but so that all proceed to eternal life. And that's why he mentions himself, he puts himself, "Nicodemus, you have to look at me, what he's saying, as the Jews in the desert looked at the bronze serpent, so you have to look at me."

And that is what God wants for your life this afternoon. We are going to lower our heads for a moment and we are going to ask that if in any way this word has spoken to you, if you want to experience a new birth, if you want God to do that work in your life, come to the feet of Jesus, invite him to enter your heart and as Christ said to Nicodemus, look at him. If the Son of Man is lifted up he will draw everyone to himself.

I want to invite you to receive Christ in your heart right now, accept him as your Lord and savior, surrender your life to him, recognize him as your God, as your mediator so that you can experience, so that these things of which we have spoken are can make it a reality in your life.