It’s kind of weird when you think about it. We’ve been standing here for the last 20-30 minutes singing about blood.

Gospel people are weird people because we love blood. But we love the blood of Jesus because that blood is powerful to save. And so it’s a song that we can’t stop singing. It’s something we love talking about. And it’s the purpose of Easter. So good morning and happy Easter. What a beautiful day it is to celebrate. To celebrate Jesus’ resurrection. If you have a Bible with you, I’d encourage you just to turn with me to John’s Gospel. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John.

We’ll be in John chapter 3.

John chapter 3 verses 1-8.

And John writes, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And 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.

Jesus answered him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

And Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?

Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. I’m sure you saw the footage or pictures of Notre Dame, that great cathedral on fire falling apart. And as many people commentated, it was a great piece of history for France and for all of Europe. It held many priceless paintings within it. So it was a landmark of culture. It was a landmark of history for France and Europe. But I read a couple of different. I read a couple of different writers who made a really good point. Unfortunately, that cathedral on fire is a very accurate symbol of the state of Christianity in France, in Europe, even in Western culture in general as we know it here in the United States.

We as a church yesterday celebrated Easter by going out and sharing the gospel. We went down to Big Spring Park and we shared the gospel with many people and prayed with some people. We went down to Big Spring Park and we shared the gospel with many people and prayed with some people and told them about Jesus. And I was grateful that we did that. But it was a reminder to me in many conversations. Most people aren’t even beginning to think about the purpose of life, why they live, why they are, much less what happens when we die.

So when Christianity was once a very real pillar of society, people had a firm foundation about what did Jesus have to say about what it means to live. Not just now, but Jesus had a word to say about what. What it means to live forever. And it’s a word forgotten.

So I want us this morning to consider what Jesus says. Really, what does it mean to be human? What does it really mean to live? Not just now, but what does it mean to live forever? That’s what Jesus came to talk to us about. How do we live forever? Look back at verse 1. It says, Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.

So this…

Nicodemus, he’s an important person. He’s very important because he’s a Pharisee and he’s a ruler of the Jews. Now up until this point in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus has done his first miracle. He turned the water into wine at the wedding. He’s done many miraculous signs. He’s even prophesied his own crucifixion, burial and resurrection, even though they don’t quite understand what he means. He’s thrown the money changers out of the temple. So Jesus isn’t like some upstart ministry anymore. Everybody knows. Everybody knows who this Jesus is. And knowing who this Jesus is, they follow him. He has like a real fan club. But he also has real enemies now too. They feel threatened. And mostly these enemies are located amongst the religious leaders. What are these Pharisees, these rulers? What Nicodemus is? And a Pharisee was someone that belonged to a religious sect. They made it up. Jesus didn’t tell them to be Pharisees. They made it up a couple centuries before Jesus. They were the Pharisees and they were separate. And they obeyed God’s law, what God said was right, better than everyone else. So they thought. And they obeyed it so good, they made up a bunch of extra rules and a bunch of extra traditions about how you could obey God’s law even better than what it said by itself. So these were people who had very real clout with the people. They were seen as the holy ones who really loved God, really obeyed God.

So Nicodemus isn’t just a Pharisee though, but he’s also a ruler of the Jews. Meaning he most likely served on the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin, it was the Jews’ government system. They’re ruled by Rome, but Rome allows them to have a Sanhedrin. Seventy elders, and they deal with government affairs as long as Rome doesn’t care to get involved. So see who Nicodemus is when it comes to Jesus. He is a man with prestige. As much prestige as you could have, Nicodemus has it as a Pharisee. As much power as you could have, Nicodemus has it as a Pharisee. As much power as you could have, as a ruler of the Jews, Nicodemus, he has that too. And so this is the man coming to Jesus by night. In verse 2 it says, he comes to Jesus and he says, Rabbi, we know that you’re a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him. So with the prestige and power of an accomplished man as Nicodemus is, he comes to Jesus in this full proud life, and he’s respectful enough to call Jesus Rabbi or teacher. He knows, okay, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly who this Jesus is, but he’s done so many miraculous things. It must be God. So he pays Jesus at least that respect, but Nicodemus wants to know more. And he is sincere. Many times in the Gospels we see the Pharisees are not sincere. They pretend to be sincere, really just because they want to trip up and foil Jesus. But that’s not Nicodemus. Nicodemus later will defend Jesus, and then when Jesus is crucified and killed, Nicodemus will assist in burying him. So Nicodemus is sincere.

But here’s what we have to grab. Nicodemus is sincerely wrong. And he’s sincerely wrong, one, in his evaluation of himself as a great man of God, a great teacher of God’s law. And secondly, he’s wrong in his evaluation and assessment of Jesus, that he’s just some other teacher, even a great teacher. So here’s what Jesus is going to do. Jesus is going to shoot through. All of Nicodemus is pomp and false security. In one statement, Jesus is going to say something that’s going to undo his accomplishments, his securities he holds so dear, and he’s going to expose them as absolutely nothing. So friends, the first thing that Jesus is saying to us this morning in this passage is this. If you want to live forever, the first thing you have to understand and come to grips with is this. We are not qualified for eternal life. We, in fact, ourselves, are unqualified. Unqualified for eternal life. Look at verse 3. Jesus answered him in response to Nicodemus. He said, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born? Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is, Spirit. So Nicodemus comes and says, Hey, I think you’re a teacher. I get that. You’ve got power on your life. I can see these miracles. And Jesus doesn’t want to banter back and forth about his miracles. Jesus immediately raises the level of the conversation. He says, Nicodemus, actually, you know what? You can’t even see, you can’t even perceive or enter the kingdom of God unless you’ve been born again. Now here Nicodemus is this great man of God. He knows God’s law like the back of his hand, almost literally. Yet he doesn’t have any idea. He doesn’t have any idea what Jesus is talking about. He’s puzzled.

Nicodemus was a great teacher of God’s law. He administered justice according to God’s law as a ruler. If anything, this man was qualified for God’s kingdom because he was such. What is Jesus doing bringing in some foreign concept about what it means to get into God’s kingdom? As a Jew, Nicodemus is looking forward to the Messiah coming, resurrecting everyone after death, and ruling in justice and equity. No sin. No sin. Surely Nicodemus is secure by his great obedience to the law, by being a ruler over the people and teaching the law. He’s sure of it, but nothing’s further from the truth.

And Nicodemus speaks out of his ignorance, and really he says something ridiculous. He says, How can a man be born again? Can I get back up in my mother’s womb and come out again? Is that what I’m supposed to do? Jesus says, Truly, truly. And when Jesus says, Truly, truly, it means what I’m getting ready to say, it counts. It’s like it really matters. So, hey, what I’m saying is the case. Hey, what I’m saying is the case. Jesus is saying, listen to me. And what Jesus does is he just rephrases what he already said. He did say to enter the kingdom, you’ve got to be born again. He’s going to rephrase it. He says, Nicodemus, you must be born of water and the spirit if you are to be born again. Can’t enter the kingdom if you’re not born of water and spirit. If you’re born of the flesh, you’re flesh. If you’re born of the spirit, you’re spirit.

Jesus has in that statement, undone, Nicodemus’ self-assurance and exposed how utterly unqualified he is to receive eternal life. Because here’s what Jesus exposed. Nicodemus, everything you’ve done in your life up to this point, no matter how great it looked to everybody else, no matter how great it looked to you, no matter if you did it better than everyone else anyways, it was done in the flesh.

Nicodemus, you’re very far from the kingdom. But I do want to ask the question, what’s wrong with being in the flesh? Because after all, I think you’re in the flesh and I’m in the flesh. Like I’m a human. I’ve been one for 29 years. You’re a human. You’ve been one for however long you’ve been born. God made flesh. We considered a couple weeks ago that we’re all made in the image of God. So why does Jesus, the creator of flesh, seem to put this prohibition or this penalty on those who are flesh? Well, go back to Genesis 5, verse 3. Genesis 5, verse 3. And see what is written there.

It says, When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. But not too long after that, in Genesis 6, verse 12, we see it saying, God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt. Why? For all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And then, in Job, chapter 15, verse 14, he really gives a good summation. The problem here, he says, what is man that he can be pure? Or who is born of a woman that can be righteous?

So man in the beginning was made perfect, was made clean. We weren’t like an animal that we’re just flesh. We weren’t a spirit either. The Scriptures say God breathed life into our bodies, meaning our constitution, as human beings, as peoples. We are both body and soul. So we do have these bodies and those are good things because God made our bodies to enjoy His physical creation, to have dominion over His creation. But God also gave us spirits. And in these spirits, we could know who this God was, love this God. We had the capacity in our spirit to obey this God, desire this God. That was Adam and Eve and all people’s unique lot that we were body and soul before God, pure, understanding Him, living according to, His Spirit. That was good. But Adam and Eve made a decision to sin against God’s law. And when Adam and Eve sinned against God and broke His commandment, friends, it ruined us. So that yes, we’re born of the flesh. You’ve got biological parents. I’ve got biological parents. We all do. But here’s what we lost. We lost our spiritual acuteness, our spiritual awareness of who God is, what God is like, what He expects of us, and the desire and capacity to carry that out in our bodies. We lost that. It doesn’t mean we’re the worst version of ourselves all the time. Like we’re always evil murderers running around being crazy. It doesn’t mean that. But here’s what it does mean. It means we are not what we once were in the garden. It means we are the palest shadows of what we once were. In fact, Paul would go as far as to say you’re spiritually dead. We’re some kind of like spiritual zombie and we can only do bad things. See how Paul says it in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. Kind. So because this is the fallen state of Adam, it’s all of our state because there’s one human line. So friends, we’ve inherited this fallen, spiritually dull nature. We all are of the flesh.

So you see it becomes apparent all of a sudden, doesn’t it? Why Jesus said what he said to Nicodemus and why Nicodemus is so dumbfounded.

Nicodemus’s life has been lived in the power of the flesh and it amounts to nothing in the eyes of God. And friends, you and I must come to terms with that very same thing. No matter how good you think you are, no matter how righteous you think you’ve lived, no matter even what you think you believe in good doctrine, friends, if it’s not in the spirit, it’s in the flesh, and if it’s in the flesh, it is not from, it is not of God and it doesn’t please God. Friends, we have spiritual debts we can’t pay because we’ve all sinned against God’s law.

None of us can ascend even for a moment to the spiritual perfections of God. To know Him, to obey Him. We can’t do it. So here’s Jesus’ only solution. This is Jesus’ only solution. It’s not, alright, you’ll have to try something else, get a new approach, let’s strategize, let’s get a whiteboard out how we can do better at trying to qualify for the kingdom. That’s not Jesus’ approach. Jesus has proven that’s not going to work at all. No one can do it. Here’s Jesus’ solution to our problem of not qualifying for the kingdom. His solution is you’re going to have to become something of God. Someone else. Someone else entirely.

Let me say it, and it might sting. You are not salvageable.

Jesus calls us to die and then be born again. And that word born again, it also can be translated born from above. We need to be born of the Spirit. Friends, if it was a spiritual death, we died in Adam. It’s a spiritual rebirth in Christ that we need. Capital S. Must be born. To be born of the Spirit. To be awoken to the glories of eternity. A desire for holiness and righteousness. To see Christ as beautiful. To love God. To love His way. Paul gives a very poignant explanation of this in Titus chapter 3 verse 4. He says, But when the goodness and loving kindness of our God and Savior appeared, He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and remission, by the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So you see, Jesus alone was perfect. Yes, He was in the flesh, but Jesus never failed to live perfectly in the Spirit. He always grasped who God was in His earthly life. He always pleased God. He always obeyed God, which meant Jesus alone was the only one qualified for eternal life. Because Jesus lived in the Spirit while He was in the flesh perfectly, Jesus alone becomes the only substitute for you and I. The law demands a blood-for-blood sacrifice of something pure and clean in our place. So it was Jesus alone who could do that. Could die for all of us in the fallen line of Adam. And as Chase said, no one took Christ’s life. Jesus laid it down. Even the martyr Stephen said He allowed Himself to be murdered for our sake.

Make no mistake about it, Jesus was killed.

Jesus was cut down. God did die.

But, by the power of God, Jesus was raised up victorious over both spiritual and physical death. And by His resurrection, He proved Himself to be our victor. Think about it. Jesus carried the sin of the world. And He died.

Now, why do you have to die? Because sin exists. Well, if Jesus died for all sin,

nobody needs to die anymore. Jesus died for sin. So Jesus killed sin, but Jesus also died, paid the price for sin. So it was the death of death. So what’s going to hold back the author of life now from getting up out of that grave? Not sin. He defeated it on the cross. Not death. He died our death. Death for us. Nothing. So Jesus, the author of life, rose Himself back up to say, hey, look what I have accomplished for you. Come have a share in my victory.

And the Bible says when we trust in this Jesus and believe He is good and believe His sacrifice was enough and believe His life is living the Spirit and He is holy and He alone is perfect, the Bible says the Spirit of God would come upon you and I and regenerate our spiritual life again. To love God and desire God. That we would not be people of the flesh, but we would live our lives in the power of the Spirit. Friends, we must be made new. We must be born again. We must accept Christ, be made spiritually whole. Peter said at Pentecost, repent, believe, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. It’s a gift. The thing about gifts is the free. If it costs, it’s not a gift, right? Jesus says, hey, this was your bad problem. You couldn’t fix. Here’s a gift. Just take it and receive it. We’re not qualified for this. Christ is our great qualifier.

He alone did it.

My wife’s been begging me for the last two years. I seem to have these stories a lot about my wife asking me to do things and taking me a long time to get around it. She’s been asking me, like, the last two years, can we please redo the landscaping out front? Please redo it. It’s awful. And it is awful. The bushes, they’re so overgrown. It’s just hideous. And you can’t see. You can’t see out the port. I mean, they’re just awful. And so the last couple years, I’ve gotten out the trimmers and I’ve just trimmed them. They’re like, look, see, that’s good enough. That’ll work, right? That’s good enough. Like, it’s fine. And it’s like, fine, fine. So this summer, this spring again, she says, we’ve got to just rip it all out and do something new. Like, no, I’ll just trim them up again. We’ll just trim them up and we’ll wait a little longer. And then, no, not this time. Not this time. So I got out there with the shovel and I had to cut every bush at the root. And some didn’t want to come up. I had to. Get a strap and tie it to my truck. And I broke a couple straps. And finally, I got some of those stubborn bushes out of the ground. And so I ripped everything that was there in that garden out.

And then we put new and beautiful things in it. It was something new. It was something beautiful. It’s nothing that could have been before.

And let me say to you,

Nicodemus did a whole lot of good in his life. Let me say to you, Nicodemus had great theology. But what Nicodemus did not have was the Spirit of Jesus Christ within him qualifying him for eternal life. It was in the flesh.

And so we must swallow the pride of life that tells us we’re good enough. I don’t need this Jesus. I can hang on to some of who I am. No. Jesus says let go. There’s no room to hold on to some of it. The kingdom of God is not a one foot in, one foot out kind of thing. It is an all or nothing. Jesus says, have all free life. Have the gift of joy. Have the gift of being made complete. Or have none of it. That was His great sacrifice.

That was His great sacrifice for us.

Living forever. Go back to verse 7 with me.

And Jesus goes on to say, do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

So Jesus describes this really incredible

new teaching about what it actually means to be one of God’s people. What it actually means to get into God’s kingdom. But as soon as He says it, He says to Nicodemus and us, don’t do the first thing you want to do. Which is marvel at it. Don’t do that. Don’t marvel at it. Don’t marvel at it. Don’t be astounded at it. Don’t step back and question this. Why not? Because as difficult or outlandish as it may be to believe it, not just some teacher spoke it, but Jesus Christ Himself spoke it. Jesus is not going to have Nicodemus looking Him in the eye as a fellow contemporary of the times, two rabbis talking about their views. Not at all. Jesus says, take me at my words because I am uniquely who I am. And the implicit command is just accept it. And given your and my propensity to doubt the things of God, it only proves Jesus’ point in the first place. We’re spiritually dull to the things of God. So Jesus pays us this grace. He gives us this illustration to help us in our belief. And He talks about the wind. He says the wind blows wherever it wishes. You hear it sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. And the Greek word for spirit is panouma. And the Greek word for wind is panouma. Jesus is doing a word play here. He’s saying from your perspective as a human, you really don’t understand how the wind works, where it goes, why it goes, what it does. At the exact same time, how the Spirit works, the operations of the Spirit, you really don’t understand that that’s happening, how that’s happening either. You just have to accept it as so by the effects.

I can remember the tornado, the tornadoes of 2011. If you lived in North Alabama at that time, you can as well. And if you can remember how much damage was caused by those, how many lives were lost, how long it took to get back to normal from those very horrible storms. And by God’s grace, I wasn’t hurt. My family wasn’t hurt. Our home, nothing happened. A couple months later after that storm, there was the lightest of thunderstorms one night. I mean, it wasn’t hardly anything. And I woke up the next morning, and these two giant trees, the chief reason I love that house and this backyard, there’s these two giant trees in the backyard kind of as a canopy. They were cracked over and they had smashed into my fence. And I’m thinking, how in the world did the wind not knock them over in that storm, but this little baby windstorm knocked my trees over my fence?

The answer is I don’t know because I don’t instruct the wind to do anything. The wind does what the wind does. I just see its effects. In the same way, I don’t tell the wind or the Spirit of God what to do. I can’t assist the Spirit of God. I just can see His effects. And I really think this illustration prevents us from interpreting it wrong. Have you ever helped the wind? It sounds silly when you actually say it. How much sillier then if we would dare assist the Holy Spirit in His operations? Jesus is doing this, friends. He’s heightening our view of God’s operation and saving us alone. It’s nothing that you, you and I can contribute to. It’s simply what He does. Remember, we’re in the flesh. We cannot affect spiritual realities. And I can see Nicodemus. Alright, Jesus, what do I can do? Hey, you know, I’m a teacher of the law, so if you need help in rebirthing me, you just let me know because I know a lot of stuff about the Torah and I’ve got these traditions and these rules. And what’s Jesus say? The wind. It’s like the wind, man.

You can’t help. You just can’t help it. All you can do, is just see it work mightily among you and in you and around you and all the people. It’s the wind. And it’s like grace.

Grace is God doing only what God can do for those who don’t deserve it, but God did it. Jesus says just throw your hands up in the air and fall on your knees and just see Christ crucified and Christ resurrected that He alone has accomplished it. He alone has done all good things. That is the meaning of Easter. For us. If we don’t want that gospel, friends, we’re left with a slew of world religions that say do this, don’t do this. If you follow the rules just right, maybe, just maybe, you’ll acquire salvation. Maybe, just maybe, maybe you’ll have peace. But Jesus says stop before you start because I’m the only one qualified to give you eternal life.

But now I will say, Jesus says you can see the effects.

You can see the effects of wind. And I saw those trees knocked over. So it must be we can see the fruit of a changed life. And those effects are a changed life. In other words, it does us no good to say we’re changed if we can’t see the fruit of a changed life. So I believe there is the challenge here as well to consider if I find great difficulty

differentiating my life from a non-believer in my priorities, in my desires, my investments, my attitudes, my conversations. Friends, Scripture says are you sure? Are you sure the Spirit’s moved in you? It’s not saying save yourself, but the Scriptures say to us often, test yourself. Make your calling and election sure. Go back to the Gospel. Believe the Gospel. Don’t work harder. Just believe that Jesus has done it and live in the power of that Spirit. The effects will be obvious. Are the effects of a changed life obvious in yours?

And a few years ago, a couple years ago, I had an opportunity to take this, this Greek class with a renowned Greek professor. He did this live thing and you could talk to him and he walked you through this Greek and it was really cool.

So I’m doing this Greek thing and trying to learn Greek and I’m still terrible at Greek.

But one night I came to the class and I’m sitting there looking and it’s like the Brady Bunch. You get all these squares of people and he says, Chad, you look like something’s wrong today. And I was like, he just saw it. And I said, well, to be honest, you know, I’ve been doing ministry and it’s just, it’s hard. Sometimes people just don’t want to do anything and it seems like people don’t care and you feel like you’re just bearing the load by yourself and can’t make sense of why it’s so hard to get people in the church so involved.

And he looked at me and of course you’ve got like eight other people like watching this conversation. And he said, Chad, if you’re going to abide in pastoral ministry,

you’re going to have to get used with the fact that the majority of the people in your church, you’re not going to spend eternity with them.

And all the eyes. And that sounds, well, that’s kind of harsh, isn’t it?

But then you think about Billy Graham who’s very famous for having said, I think 75% of the people in the church aren’t really in the church.

And later, his name’s Dr. Bill Mounts, he was in the car with John Piper. John Piper’s a very popular writer and speaker. He says to John Piper, John, you do so much. He says, I’ve accomplished a lot in my life and Dr. Bill Mounts has, but he said, I look like nothing compared to you and what you’ve done. What keeps you going?

And John Piper looked back at Bill Mounts and said, I’m convinced the church is full of people going to hell.

And I’m not saying that to be some kind of big downer on Easter. I’m saying this to you to say, Easter is about us not just remembering what someone did for us, but us ourselves as the church living in the truth and reality of it. And hypocrisy is only going to hurt you.

Don’t wait until it’s too late to discover I believed all the right things, but I did not abide and actually follow Jesus. The effects. Are they obvious?

Would someone say, I don’t know, I mean, I think they’re maybe a Christian, but I’ve never heard them share the gospel and they’re about as mean as fire ants and they spend their money on everything. I’ve just never seen a life that looks changed. Jesus says, you’ll see the effects of a work the Spirit’s done. Friends, are we a changed people truly? Because of the gospel. Because of Easter. Don’t wait until it’s too late to find out.

Don’t wait. I had a conversation with a guy yesterday. I said, so you never think about dying? And he said, well, I’ve thought about it before, but it is what it is and I don’t think about it and when it comes, it comes. And I’m like, but life’s so short. The Scriptures say it’s like a vapor. You know, it’s here and it’s gone. And so Jesus says, you’ve got these few little moments to decide how you want to spend eternity. Don’t wait. Don’t waste it living in the flesh and don’t waste it pretending you’re in the Spirit. Jesus says, accept the free gift and then live in the power and joy of the Spirit.

So friends, the only way to live forever is to die to yourself and live a new life in Jesus. He has the qualified life. He alone had the power to qualify us and He did it.

And you know, what’s funny is just a few verses ahead. We read that very famous verse that so many people know.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. And so often that verse is right out of the context of this conversation. I think most people don’t even know about this conversation. It just sounds great. Like, oh great, I’ll agree with that. Jesus died on the cross for my sins. That’s great. Okay, I’ll take that. Sure. But everything that we’ve considered that kind of belief that Jesus is talking about isn’t simply saying, okay, it’s a life surrender, isn’t it? This believing says, Jesus, take me and remake me and have Your way. Put Your Spirit in me. I want to look like You. I want to love You. I want to obey You. I want to spend eternity with You. That’s the kind of believing Jesus is calling us to. So my question, I guess, for you this Easter morning is not, did you know Jesus died on a cross for you? That’s really not the question I think we need to consider. Here’s the question that we need to consider. Have you gotten up on that cross and died with Him?

Jesus says, until you’ve died with Him, you will not be raised to new life with Him.

Friends, we must be born again. Let’s pray.