John 3:1-8

One dark night in the ancient city of Jerusalem, Jesus turned to one of the best-known intellectuals of his time, a learned and very devoutly religious man, and said, "Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." In those words Jesus told us of both the necessity and the possibility of new birth –of spiritual transformation. Since that time, over two thousand years ago, untold millions throughout the ages have attested to the reality and the power of God in their lives through being born again. So what is this spiritual change all about?

What does it mean to be born again? It is not just a remodeling job, performed somehow by us on ourselves. Today we hear a lot about surgical procedures that can totally change our appearance. After some of these surgeries people don’t look a thing like they did to begin with. You get a new and improved body. You can take off ten, even twenty years, your appearance. You can put hair where there is no hair and more. All of this is very appealing isn’t it? For a price you can be changed! Right? Problem is that the person you are is not changed. You are the same person with possibly a slightly or albeit greatly altered outer shell.

Being born again has to do with a total transformation of the person from the inside out. We are talking about change from within—but not change you can do on your own. We are talking about a total makeover that only God can do. Not even Ty Pennington can accomplish this makeover. And you and I can’t do it either. We can do some things to improve ourselves but we cannot renew ourselves. God created us. Only God can recreate us. Only God can give us the new birth we so desperately want and need.

According to Rev. Billy Graham, the greatest news in the universe is that we can be born again. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John 3:16) Over the next couple of weeks we are going to take a closer look at this spiritual change that God can and does offer to us all.

In his book How to be Born Again (written back in 1977) Graham tells the following story. He writes, "One of our best know show biz personalities asked to come to his dressing room after a show on which I had appeared. He motioned me in and said, "I make people laugh…but inside I feel like hell. I’ve been married twice; both marriages have broken up. It’s been mostly my fault, I guess but I didn’t think I could make a go of a third marriage unless I could find some sort of fulfillment which I don’t know how to get."

He stopped and looked at me. "Do you think what I’m really looking for is summed up in the word GOD?"

You see, all of his fame and money had not satisfied his searching heart.

Ever feel this way? It is a universal feeling—to be searching for something that makes sense of it all. We long for something that brings meaning to our lives and a sense of atonement for our past mistakes. That something, Graham says, is being born again.

This is a universal longing—both church members and spiritually thirsty non-church members have been hungry for a personal, vital experience with Jesus Christ. Many have turned to other forms of worship in addition to the Sunday morning church service. We witness that millions of Christians are going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food. This is happening right here: with the popularity of retreats like Tres Dias and Walk to Emmaus, Chrysalis and so forth. People are looking for and longing for a more powerful and lasting spiritual experience than they are finding on Sunday morning in their own church. Therefore it is of paramount importance that as the church we help people find that spiritual experience and connection with and closeness to God. If people don’t find it here they will go elsewhere.

There are many feelings and desires that we share as human beings one of the strongest is the desire to change, to start over, to improve, to be better than we are right now be it mentally, physically, or spiritually. But we also have something else in common. We have something deep within ourselves that prevents us from the very thing that we long for and that something is a simple three letter word that we don’t use a whole lot anymore but the Bible uses it a great deal: SIN.

Billy Graham writes (back in the 1970’s) "Some people don’t like the word sin. They believe this is for the other person, not them. But everyone recognizes that the human race is sick and that whatever the disease is, it has affected all of life."

"What is this thing called sin?" The Westminster Confession defines SIN as "any want of conformity to or transgression of the law of God." Sin is anything contrary to the will of God.

One of the translations of the term sin in the NT is "to miss the target." In other words, sin is our failure to live up to God’s standards. All of us miss the target; there is not one person who is capable of fulfilling all of God’s laws at all times.

Coming up here in a couple of weeks will be the Olympic Games. For two weeks the world will witness young men and women striving to the best of the best in their particular field. Athletes, who have trained for years, disciplining their minds and bodies to attain greater and greater goals, often fall short of their target. I recently saw a clip form the games where the young African American runner who fell in a race and was helped by his father to cross the line. He got last place—but he finished. We will witness tremendous victories as well as great failures.

Graham tells the story of one of the finest figure skaters of her day share how frightened she was of falling and ruining her performance. She said, "Think how much time I’ve put into this, and how much other people have to help me. With one mistake, it could all go down the drain."

You and I are not so different from these young athletes. In our lives we are constantly striving to succeed and sometimes instead we fail miserably. There is no way we can turn in a perfect 10 performance all the time. The Bible is well aware of human failure and disappointment. King David said, "They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one" (Psalm 14:3).

The prophet Isaiah confessed, "All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way." (Isa. 53:6)

We have all been touched by the sin of Adam and Eve. David said, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me" (Ps. 51:5). This doesn’t mean that he was born out of wedlock, but that he inherited the tendency to sin from his parents. So it is true that none of us falls far from the tree.

What makes matters even more challenging is that we are all sinners by choice. When we reach the age of accountability and face the choice between good and evil, we will slip. We may choose to get angry, to lie, or to act selfishly. We will gossip or slander someone’s character. None of us can really trust his heart, any more than we can trust a lion in the wild. The Bible applies this principle like this: "Sin is crouching at the door." (Genesis 4:7) Most of us are capable of almost anything, given the right circumstances.

Come on, Joe, lighten up, you may be thinking. People are not all that bad. You are right. People are not all bad. But the problem is that we all have bad in us but is it that BAD? Well what happens is for most all of us sin becomes a pattern in our lives. What happens is we get caught up in our sins and we get caught up in mistakes and shortcomings and out and out wrong choices in our past and it catches up with us. It then becomes a pattern for our entire life.

Graham tells us that sin can have several lasting and very deadly affects on our lives. First, Sin is like cancer. It destroys step by step. Slowly, without realizing its insidious onslaught, it progresses until finally the diagnosis is pronounced: sick to death.

How many of you have ever had the opportunity to swim in the ocean? Ok than you know that when you are out there in the ocean water with the tide moving in and out that is it easy to get out much further than you first thought yourself to be, right? You don’t realize how far you’re drifting from shore until all of a sudden you find yourself beyond your depth, trying desperately to swim, but unable to hold your own against the outgoing tide. This happens to us when it comes to sin in our life. Sin moves us further and further away from God, from others and from the person that we long to be and we don’t even see it happening at first until we realize one day—Oh My God! Look how far I’ve drifted away, look at what I’ve become, look at how far I am from the person I wish I was and so forth.

Sin attacks another fact of our being—our will. Jesus said, "Every one who commits sin is a salve of sin." (John 8:34) We think of slavery as something in a third world country. But even in countries where there is political freedom, there are millions who live under the tyranny of pride, jealously, or prejudice. Countless others are slaves to alcohol, sex, and drugs. They possess traits or are consumed by desires they hate but are powerless in their grip. They want to be free, and some search from freedom through all sorts of artificial means but alas find no true or lasting relief. They just go deeper and deeper into the loss of will power to control those very desires that threaten to destroy their lives.

Unresolved hatred and bitterness can make anyone a slave to sin as it attacks the will. Graham tells the story of William P. Wilson, then Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center, systematically took Bibles away from his patients at the center. But his life and medical practice have been transformed by the power of Jesus Christ, and he now uses the insights he has gained from the gospel in treating his patients. He keeps copies of the Bible in his office and gives them out. Dr. Wilson says, "One of the greatest causes of mental illness is unresolved guilt. Feelings of shame, inadequacy, missing the mark, not measuring up, are some sources of guilt feelings. The answer to guilt is grace and the new birth. The new birth leads to the forgiveness of sin."

Finally, sin not only affects the mind and the will, but also the conscience. A person becomes very slow to detect the approach of sin. It’s like telling a lie: the first time you tell a story it really bothers you; but the repetition your conscience is no longer your guide, and soon the lie is woven so strong that you are convinced that it’s the truth. You no long heave the sensitivity to things you know are wrong. Haven’t you known people who seem to have NO conscience?

The result of infection with sin over long period of time is no longer knowing the difference between good and evil and this result is found in every part of the Scriptures. When David first looked at Bathsheba, a train of events began which lead form adultery to deceit to murder. David was forgiven for his sins, but he had to pay the natural consequences.

Sin has a penalty. Although this may be a subject we would like to ignore, it is an unavoidable fact. Not only does everyone suffer as a result of sin in this life, but everyone must face the judgment to come. "For the ways of sin is death" (Romans 6:23) This is exactly why we cannot do it ourselves. But here is the good news: God offers us another way to live, a second chance, a new beginning. Jesus refers to the process of the internal change like being born again (or other translations: born from above) because we are helpless to do it on our own by our own willpower.

I want to conclude with a very personal story that Graham retells in his book How to Be Born Again. He writes, "I will never forget the summer of 1973. That was the year that one of the greatest Christians I ever knew entered heaven. He was my father-in-law, Dr. L. Nelson Bell. Dr. Bell served Christ for years in China as a missionary surgeon. In 1972 he had been Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the highest honor his denomination could bestow. The night before he died he spoke for the World Missions Conference in a large auditorium in Montreat.

At the end of his talk he said, "Before I pray I have a few words today. After hearing that singing, no one can deny that our Presbyterian Church is waking up. Now in this place there are two groups of people. There are those who know they are saved and love the Lord Jesus Christ, and there are those here who as yet may not know Christ. My hope is that before you leave this place you will come to know Him as your personal Lord and Savior. The Lord said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hears my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with me."

Today is the beginning of our talks about being born again. We have begun with our common problem—the infection of sin. But it is not too soon right now to ask Jesus to enter into your life. So as we close today’s service I would like to offer this time for prayer for anyone here who wants to open the door for Christ to enter into your life. Regardless, I want to ask you to come back next week to hear how Jesus is the answer to the problem of sin and how the cross and forgiveness and grace are the key. Let us pray.