Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him. Jesus replied, Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. How can someone be born when they are old? Nicodemus asked. Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born! Jesus answered, Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.

-John 3:1-5 (NIV)

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

-2 Corinthians 10:4-5 (NIV)

What is the Ultimate Stronghold in every generation? 

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

-2 Corinthians 4:4-5 (NIV)

The most important question of your life: Have you been born again?

The new birth is the only thing that defeats the ultimate stronghold.

The New Birth. Who is it for? Where does it come from? What does it do? How does it come?

First: Who is it for?

What do you think of when you hear “born again?” Emotion? Broken and rescued? Religious “know it all”?

Nicodemus is none of these.

Nicodemus wants to be in the Kingdom of God.

Palingenesia (greek): new birth, regeneration

Greeks: cyclical regeneration

Jesus: one ultimate event

Second: Where does it come from?

The new birth is the power that God is going to use to regenerate the world brought into your present.

He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior...

-Titus 3:5-6 (NIV)

What is water and spirit?

The New Birth: Who is it for?

Everyone. All need it.

Where does it come from?

The future.

What does it do or give?

Third: What does it do?

Illustration: birth of a baby and the world of sensations

The soul sees in these things that which it never saw before. It discerns in the truth of God a beauty and excellence of which it had no conception until now. Whatever may be the diversity in the clearness of the views of different people, or in the particular truths brought before the mind, they all agree in this, that there is a new perception of truth; whether you ascribe it to the head or the heart, I care not.

-Archibald Alexander, Thoughts on Religious Experience

The most drastic change is: New identity.

Big sign of the New Birth: Your loves are reordered. What matters most to you is Jesus.

Four: How does the new birth come?

What was Jesus’ reply to Nicodemus? The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

-John 3:8 (NIV)

Look at the end of this section: No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

-John 3:13-15 (NIV)

Repent of looking at yourself rather than looking at Jesus as your Savior!

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

-2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)

What is life’s greatest stronghold?

Stronghold: a lie that is believed that destroys.

The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

-2 Corinthians 4:4 (NIV)

You can go to church all of your life and be blind.

• Do I believe I am righteous enough to go to heaven?

• Do I have little passion to seek and pursue a relationship with Jesus?
• Do I have no intention of changing the things that violate the word of God?

• Do I equate being a Christian with being a morally good person?

• Do I believe that all religions are many roads to the same destination?

• Do I believe that I have done too many bad things to come to Jesus?

• Is my greatest love and passion to be like Jesus?

• Have my eyes been opened to the truth of God’s Word and the power of the Holy Spirit to bring healing and transformation into my life?

• Does my heart melt when people far from God come near?
• Do I see everything I have as a gift from God?

None of those are about what you do but rather about how you see Jesus.

What must we do? Look at the cross and listen. He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness

-1 Peter 2:24A (KJV)

But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

-Romans 5:8 (NIV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God

-2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)

And through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross

-Colossians 1:20 (NIV)

He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption

-Hebrews 9:12 (NIV)

And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all

-Hebrews 10:10 (NIV)

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world 1 John 2:2 (ESV)

And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation

-Revelation 5:9 (NIV)

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

-John 3:14-16 (NIV)