If you have reached this section of our website, you are wondering about how a person, any person, can have a personal relationship with God. Below is a message that I taught at Sharon during the summer months of 2007. I invite you to read this and if you have a question, a concern, or would like to discuss anything in this message, I invite you to e-mail me at gary@sharonbaptist.org.

Blessings,

Gary Lewis

Lead Pastor and Discipleship

The Born Again Ultimatum

Within the last few weeks, news from around our country has focused on many different items, but there have been two that have seemed to grab the headlines, the mine collapse in Utah and the bridge collapse on a major interstate freeway in Minnesota over the Mississippi River. If you have been following the news headlines, you know in these stories just as in many other tragedies, there is a sequence of events that play themselves out along a timeline:

• There is the tragic event
• The initial response to save people in the tragedy
• The realization of loss
• The search for someone or something to blame
• The lawsuit

For example, on Wednesday, investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board investigating the bridge collapse in Minnesota said they had found design flaws in gusset plates, which helped tie the bridge's steel beams together.

For the next three weeks, I would like us to do our own investigation into another tragedy that occurs every single day. All across the world, there are people who make a decision to say “no” to the greatest offer ever made as well as those who choose not to tell others about it. What is this offer? What is the tragedy? The offer is the opportunity to receive the gift of an eternal relationship with God. The tragedy is the decision made to say “no” to it as well as the decision so many Christians make not to tell others about it, including spouses, brothers, sisters, kids, parents, friends, coworkers, and neighbors.

I want you to know this morning that this is not going to be a series of guilt because I personally don’t think you can ever guilt anyone into anything for any amount of time. I want us to see that the issue at hand is the simple fact the world is full of believers in Jesus Christ, like you and me, who simply do not understand a few simple truths.

Have you ever been intrigued by someone and ended up with an opportunity to spend some time with them and talk with them? Like many of you, I have had that experience a few times. One of the most vivid ones in my mind was the coincidental pairing in a golf tournament that had me riding in a cart with the former head football coach of the University of Colorado and founder of PromiseKeepers, Coach Bill McCartney, or as he asked all of us to call him, Coach Mac. For 5-6 hours, we rode 18 holes together and talked about everything. In that conversation, he gave me an anchor point for life. On the second tee, I told him how “in awe” I was in playing golf and spending time with him. He put his giant arm around me and said, “Gary, the only difference between you and me is our calling; you were called to Sharon and I was called to PromiseKeepers.”

It was with that same curiosity and awe that a religious leader, named Nicodemus, approached Jesus on a dark night in Jerusalem. Look at John 3:1-2. Who was this Pharisee? What exactly did a member of the Jewish Ruling Council do? As a Pharisee, Nicodemus strived to live a godly/ethical life, worked hard to obey all of the laws of the Old Testament, and believed God was active in the details of life. As a member of the Jewish ruling council or Sandhedrin, he was a part of something similar to our Supreme Court. It was the final place where a law case could be heard. How did Jesus respond to this man’s coming to see him so secretly? As we read John 3:3, we see that Jesus was very pointed in His response as He gives the born again ultimatum.

Why did Jesus respond so abruptly? Just as there were signs of these huge bridges in Minnesota getting ready to collapse that either people failed to notice or chose to ignore, Jesus brought to this man’s attention the simple fact: Nicodemus, if you died right now, you would not be in heaven, even though you are fully convinced you would. Isn’t that the belief so many of us have in this room this morning? If we were to take a mic and walk around the room and ask every person here, the majority of you would say, “if I died right now, I know I would be in heaven.”

Sadly, many of us base our belief on the same faulty beliefs that Nicodemus had. What were they?

1. His birth - Like a guy we meet later in the New Testament, named Paul, Nicodemus would have thought his birth would have paved the way. Look at what Paul had been taught as a child in Philippians 3:5.

2. His religion - Like Paul, Nicodemus had achieved the status of becoming a Pharisee, who strived to live as good a life as possible. Paul had the same confidence according to Philippians 3:5.

3. His knowledge - Based on the fact that Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish ruling council, he would have had a superior knowledge to just about anyone else of the teachings of the Old Testament. In fact, Jesus points out how learned Nicodemus should have been in the Old Testament teachings in John 3:10.

4. He believed – To understand what I mean here, you need to look at John 2:23-24; 3:2. Nicodemus believed with his head that Jesus was the Son of God, based on all the miracles that He had seen. In fact, that is why he had snuck out at night to meet with Jesus.

Some of you believe this and/or have people in your life who do also. Here is the modern equivalent:

• I have been in church my whole life, I have been a Christian since the day I was born.
• I have tried to live a good life. I haven’t done any of the big ones: murder, adultery, and robbery.
• I was raised in church; I know all the stories. I know about Noah, Moses, and David and Goliath.
• I believe in God, or yeah, I believe that Jesus died on a cross and rose again. I believe the story.

To anyone and everyone who would make any of the statements above, Jesus would respond with the born again ultimatum. Read again John 3:3.

Why though is God so dead-set on the born again ultimatum that was given to Nicodemus and given to every person on planet earth? Because birth, religion, knowledge, and head belief don’t require God and don’t involve love. They are all graceless and non-relational. They are all like what many of you are experiencing at night during these 100+ degree days. For many of you, you are hungry at night, and regardless of how much you eat, you just cannot seem to get satisfied. The truth is that your body is not hungry, but thirsty. You don’t need food, but you need water.

Think about it this way:

• It is not birth but rebirth. Why? There is great security in birth. You cannot go from born to unborn. You cannot go back in the process. Sure anyone who has been born can die if life is taken from them, but they can never be unborn. As born again, we can live with the promise that God’s Spirit is living in us and won’t ever be taken away. Look at John 3:5-6.
• It is not religion but relationship. Relationships are based on love and where there is real love, there is real evidence of it. Look at John 3:8. How do you know the Spirit is present in someone’s life? There is evidence. How do you know someone loves you and me? There is evidence.
• It is not knowledge but faith. Knowledge means that I see or learn something and therefore I believe it. Faith, on the other hand, if where I believe something with the result I see it. Look at John 3:13; Hebrews 11:1.
• It is not head belief but heart belief. Head belief means that I believe something to be true or to have really occurred, to believe the facts about something, while heart belief requires me to act based on what I claim to believe. In John 3:14-15 Jesus refers to a story in the Old Testament where the people could be healed completely of their snake bites if they would just look at the bronze snake Moses had been commanded by God to put on a pole. They did not just have to believe it could heal, they had to look and be healed. They had to act on their factual belief.

Think about it from another angle:

• Being reborn is something only God can make happen to us and He does it because He loves us.
• A relationship with God is the very reason we were created in the first place, and the core of that relationship is love.
• Out of love, God rewards faith, Hebrews 11:6.
• As we step forward by trusting God by having heart belief, we then experience God’s love.

There is no greater example of this than for all of us in the room who are worriers. Do we have any here today? Matthew 6:33-34 tells us that born again people, who focus on their relationship with God to the point that God’s agenda has become theirs and have a growing faith that is growing to trust God more and more each day, have no need to worry.

So, why are you so confident that you will one day see heaven when you die?

1) Were you born that way or have you been reborn?

2) Did you achieve it because of something religious you did or because you have a relationship with God because His Son, Jesus Christ lives in you?

3) Do you feel the need to see “it” so you can trust God or do you trust God, knowing you will see “it.”

4) Do you believe in your head or have you acted on that belief to believe in your heart. Have you given Him your life by asking Him to come and live in your heart?

Again, the born again ultimatum: John 3:3.

So, right now, if you, truly desire from your heart for Jesus Christ to come and live in your life, to be your Lord and Savior, why not ask Him. If you should choose to make this decision or if you have more questions, we again invite you to contact us. If you are not in the McDonough, Georgia area, we would be honored to help you find a local church where you can get connected and begin growing in your new-found relationship with Jesus Christ, God’s only Son.