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APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES
In the first section, we dealt basically with the principles of the new birth. Seeking to create proper understanding of what it means and why it is important. In this section, we want to talk about how the new birth should affect my daily living. There is a difference between religion and true Christianity. Religion is what I do. It is external and has no saving value at all. Since we are not saved because of something that we do then we know that religion alone does not satisfy God. Being a Christian is a matter of the heart. God does something within my heart and changes me totally and everything in my life changes because of my new relationship with God.
It is somewhat like being an orphan, not having a father, and someone adopts me. They clothe me, they feed me, they nurture me and they also teach me the ways of the family. I become a member of that family and those principles in time become a part of me and I act differently than I did before my life without Jesus. It is like the orphan without a family, a home, and a father. I am left completely on my own with Satan as my father whose only desire is to destroy me. When I become born again, I have a new father who loves me and is concerned for me and makes my life as joyful as I could ever hope for it to be. So, the new birth means a new life, a new father, a new home, a new family, and a whole new purpose for living.
It is important to think about this to understand the type of change that God makes in my life and why He does so. Some people come to Jesus for selfish reasons and yet if that is the reason that they have followed Jesus, then they are not true followers. Their relationship to God and Jesus Christ is misunderstood and their relationship to God is merely external and the heart has not been changed. Having said this, it is needful to point out how being born again affects the different relationships of life.
In Luke chapter 9, we have the story of three would be followers. These are the ones we just talked about. To them everything was surface. The first one saw all the miracles that Jesus did and decided that he wanted to be part of that company not realizing that following Jesus had consequences. He wanted to follow Jesus for selfish reasons. So, Jesus said to him “foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” What Jesus was saying to this charismatic follower was, if you follow me you must count the cost. Are you ready for sleepless nights and restless days? Of course, when he considered the consequences he decided that was not for him. The second man was persuaded to follow Jesus but he needed some time. He didn’t want to be too rash like the first disciple and he said, “I’ll follow you but let me bury my father first”. Well, we don’t know how old his father was but he wasn’t dead yet and he had to wait. It was an excuse for delay. Jesus said,” let the dead bury the dead”, in other words these matters can be taken care of by those who are not concerned about the kingdom of God.
Following Jesus was to be done without delay and without the opportunity to make an excuse. The third follower told Jesus that he would follow Jesus but first, he wanted to go back and say goodbye to his friends and sometimes people think that following Jesus is a cause for celebration or having a party. I was in a church that thought, because their children completed a confirmation class, that it was the same as becoming a Christian. It was followed by a party, gifts, and words of congratulations. Jesus answer was “no man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This talks about serving Christ with no regrets. I have decided to follow Jesus with no plans of turning back, the three examples cover the selfish ways that people become Christians and Jesus’ answer to them caused them to turn back because their hearts were not right and they were motivated selfishly.
Now let’s talk about how being born again affects the different relationships of my life.
1.To God
The whole idea of the new birth began in the mind of God before man was ever created. When God created man with a free will, He also knew that man could abuse that freedom and so God in His purposes included a plan for a time when man might fall. Having a free will always include that possibility, and if it didn’t happen with Adam it probably would have happened with someone else later, so the whole idea of bringing man back after he fell was part of God’s great plan and part of God’s great love for man. The creation of man was God’s idea and when man fell, God was there to pick him up and get him functioning again. There are some people who are afraid of God, and they ought to be because they are His enemies by choice. But when I become a Christian I become a child of God and everything that there is in that relationship is mine as well.
Three things we must know and understand about God. First, that He is a good God; Second, that He is a God that is concerned about our deepest needs and well-being; Third, that He is a God who makes no mistakes and cannot lie. He always means what He says and true faith means that I take God at his word, even when I do not fully understand. There are other things about God that we come to understand more fully as we grow in our relationship with him. They are called His attributes. For instance, He is always present, all-seeing, all-powerful, full of glory and majesty, patient, long-suffering etc. We could write a book on the attributes alone but that is not our purpose for this section.
2.To Man
God created man perfectly in the image of God. What we mean by that is that he was created distinctly different from the rest of creation and all of creation was made to serve him. Man, is created in the image of God and that means that he was created with godlike qualities, without sin and at that time walked in perfect harmony with God, until the day he chose to take of the forbidden tree. Although God only gave them one commandment, they still broke it and what happened is important to remember. The day that Adam took of that fruit something terrible happened. A separation took place that he never experienced before. That separation caused him to be self-conscious, cover himself with fig leaves, and hide from God. He hid from God because he was afraid of God and that reveals something serious had taken place.
The word “death” means “separation” and separation from God took place immediately as he took the fruit. Although God came looking for him and eventually restored him and forgave him, something happened to Adam that has affected all of the mankind. Every man born in this world since Adam has received a nature that loves sin. It is like an incurable disease that we inherit from birth and this disease has passed on to every man who has ever lived since Adam, except the Lord Jesus Christ, who was born without sin. He did not have that sin nature, and His purpose was part of God’s plan to bring man back from the fall. One of the evidence of this sin nature is that we have received a desire to live selfishly. Selfishness is evidence that I have this sin nature and when man sins it was because Adam sinned, and death passed upon all men for all have sinned. We have a sin nature that only God can help us to overcome.
Without God, we are slaves and we are always finding ways to get rid of the guilt that only God can remove. So, it’s important to know about man’s beginning, man’s fall and how that fall has affected every man who is born into the world. Because of Adam a great need exists for the new birth. Before the fall, it was perfection; after the fall, there was sin but that is not the end. God has made provision to bring man back and that’s what being born again is all about.
3. To Jesus Christ
Because God is holy and perfect, there is nothing that man could ever do to cause his sin to be forgiven. Because God is holy it was necessary for someone to keep the commandments of God and be perfect. As we study the books of the Old Testament, God’s way of forgiving man was through the means of a substitute. Man, could die for his own sin and be eternally separated from God, but God allowed the death of an animal to take the place of the person, but it didn’t stop there. All those sacrificial rituals pointed to one who would come into the world and die for man’s sin. We are told that the blood of bulls and goats could never take away sin. God allowed those for a while until his son Jesus came. All through the Bible we see prophecies concerning one called the Messiah, who would come and save man from his sin and set up a kingdom which is not of this world. When Jesus came, His main purpose was to put away sin. When he was born, he was born without a sin nature and he did not have a human father. He was born through means of the Holy Spirit and He fulfilled the requirements of God for a perfect sacrifice. Another reason that Jesus came was to reveal to us what God was like. We saw God in human flesh when they looked at Jesus. When we saw Jesus, we saw God. Jesus was sent by God, prepared by God and accepted by God as the sacrifice necessary to satisfy God’s requirement for a holy and perfect sacrifice. When He came, and died on the cross, His last words were “it is finished”. That means the divine plan of God for a perfect substitute for my sin was accomplished. Now because of what Christ has done, it is possible for man to be restored to a right relationship with God, like he had before he fell. But believing the facts about Jesus is not enough. We must first recognize our unworthiness for what He did; second, we must realize that His death on the cross was the only way to satisfy the requirement of a holy God; and third, we must with gratitude, receive pardon that he offers and become His follower. Not like the three would be followers, but followers who through gratitude by the removal of our guilt have decided to embrace him as our Lord and Savior.
John the Baptist referred to him as “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world” and that’s exactly what happened. Jesus has become the perfect Lamb that God required. He willingly went to the cross and died in order that we might have salvation. Without such action, there would be no salvation and we would be lost forever. Forgiveness of sin is not something that everyone receives. But it is available and all that we do is receive it as a gift. Some might think that this is too easy, but it is the only way that a loving God could save man. By offering it this way makes it possible for us to fully understand its value. It is a great Gift from God to those unable to earn or pay for it themselves.
4.The Holy Spirit
Before He went to the cross, Jesus told his disciples of one who would come after him. Jesus described this one as one who is called upon to help us in our need. The Holy Spirit, unlike Jesus, is invisible. But though he is invisible he is real and active and can be seen by the things that he does in and through people. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all three important parts of God and when Jesus died, God sent the Holy Spirit to live and dwell in everyone who becomes a true believer and follower of Jesus. Jesus told us, that when He comes He will instruct, help us to remember, make us sensitive toward sin, He will create understanding of the word of God, He will go before and give guidance, He will protect and warn us of danger. That is by no means everything that the Holy Spirit does.
There are two important activities that are performed by the Holy Spirit that is helpful for us to know. First, He produces godly character in the believer. They are called the fruit of the spirit. Paul the apostle further explains what the fruit of the Spirit is. First, it is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and self-control. When the spirit of God is working, others will see this fruit coming forth from our life. There are people who can pretend to be followers of Christ by the things they say that they believe, but the way that we understand the true follower is the way that we see them behave. That is the fruit of the spirit that we see in the life of the Christian that helps us to realize that his relationship with Jesus Christ is real.
The second thing the Holy Spirit does is to give each Christian a spiritual gift. Gifts are abilities to do certain types of activities and perform different types of service. For instance there are seven gifts; Prophecy: one who declares truth; Service: the ability to serve others in a practical way; Encouragement: the ability to give steps of action in order to serve more effectively; Teaching: the ability to instruct and cause people to understand the word of God; Ruling: the ability to be an administrator and organize different works of the church; Mercy: one who is able to be empathetic and feel the pain of others in order to minister to them, and finally the gift of Giving: that is the ability of a person to organize finances to do the work of God more effectively. Every Christian has a gift and these gifts given by the Holy Spirit enable us to do the greatest amount of work with the least amount of effort. So, we see that although the Holy Spirit is invisible, it is possible to know that He is present in the character that he forms in the Christian and by the gifts He uses to do God’s work more effectively.
5. To the Church
We begin this section by asking the question, “why is the church necessary for the Christian?” In our present age, there is a movement that has down-played the importance of the local church and so it is necessary to address the question why the church is necessary for the Christian.
The word “church” comes from the Greek word “Ecclesia” which refers to any gathering of people together for discussing or meeting some objective.” In the Bible, the church refers to the meeting together as the family of God for sharing the gospel and building up each other in the faith.
In the New Testament, the church is described in two ways. First it is called the “universal church”. What that means is that everyone throughout the world who has been indwelt by the Spirit of God and has experienced the new birth is part of that church. Because the church is scattered worldwide it is not possible in this life to meet them all, so in another sense it is called the “invisible” church because although they are real, we may never see them. Second, the church, as we generally think, is composed of born-again believers who worship in the local church, the one in our community or town or village. They are those we know because we all attend the same church together. On the other hand, we must remember that only born-again believers compose the church. There are people who come to our local churches who are not born again: they may be interested in the Bible and pretend to be Christians, but they have never experienced the new birth. Only those who by the Holy Spirit have been born into the family of God are true believers and part of the true church.
Now we want to talk about how those members who are part of the family of God are to are to behave. In the book of Acts, we find a perfect illustration of how the true church is characterized. We have this verse in acts 2:41,42: “then they that gladly received His word were baptized: and the same day they were added onto them about 3000 souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostle’s doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread, and in prayers.
In these verses, we discover the principles that are characteristics of healthy churches.
1. They were believers.
They were not a group of various religionists with different beliefs and goals. They were followers of Jesus only and their devotion was to Him alone. They were believers in the teaching that the apostles gave to them and the Holy Spirit was granted to them as evidence of their true faith.
2. The word was received with enthusiasm.
We cannot help but believe that the words spoken by the apostles were spoken enthusiastically, with faith, and inspiring hope. The type of message that they preached produced the desired results in the people to whom they were speaking. There had to be a prayerful and careful presentation that was factually correct and doctrinally pure.
3. They were Obedient
We are told that they were baptized. Now in those days that was no small matter. It identified them and marked them as followers of Jesus Christ in a society that was hostile to the Lord and to his followers. It was an open declaration of a choice that they had made and their willingness to suffer the consequences of being identified with Jesus. The world looks at the dedicated Christian as a fanatic, trying to ruin their fun, but the truth is we are trying to deliver them from the fun that is going to ruin their souls. Our baptism today is a different baptism. It is a baptism of a life and the light that shines in the darkness and the darkness is always trying to extinguish it. It takes courage to be a stand-up Christian but what else can we do? A different life presented to the world is the only thing that will get their attention to help them to see that something is missing from their life
4. They continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine.
The apostle’s doctrine was a teaching that they received by those who were taught directly by Jesus Himself. They were the closest to the truth because of the time that they lived and the teaching they received. It was the apostle’s doctrine that later gave them a standard to judge false teachings, which later began to creep into the church. For instance, when the heresies of Gnosticism and Montanism began to have a great influence over the believers, it was the “Apostles Creed” that was formed, that gave them a standard to counteract these false teachers. However, having the apostle’s doctrine was just the beginning. We are told that they continued steadfastly in this teaching. That means that the will was determined to believe them and embrace them and persevere through them.
The early followers of Jesus embraced these principles and it was reflected in their life and in their purpose. It would be nice today if Christians could persuade the world that they were sincere and truly believed what they claim what the Bible teaches. The world needs to know that we are serious about the truth we proclaim and they need to see it displayed in our conduct and in our reactions.
5. They provided Christian Fellowship
There were other Christians available to provide support, strength, and encouragement. I always appreciated John’s testimony on the Island of Patmos when he referred to himself as “your brother and companion in tribulation”. The early Christians knew the importance of providing encouragement, for they also passed through the same tribulations. Their support was born out of their own struggles and they had sincere compassion for others who are hurting. There are many today who claim to be Christians who entertain the idea that they do not need Christian Fellowship. Of course, all this changed when they themselves face opposition and struggles that are beyond their own resources to overcome.
At my place of employment, I am constantly amazed at the “little church” that exists at work; there are Christians with different beliefs yet they are there for one another to encourage and support their brothers and sisters in Christ. In Hebrews chapter 10, we are given these very important words in verses 24 and 25. “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.” When the times of great tribulation are taking place, it’s going to be the comfort and the support of fellow Christians that will help us through that terrible time. While it is important for us to receive Fellowship, it is equally important that we provide it. In this early church, everyone recognizes the importance of Fellowship and tragically it takes difficulty for us to recognize its importance.
6. They shared their material substance. (Breaking of bread)
Do not interpret this statement as meaning sharing the sacraments together. That is important but it doesn’t take care of those who were suffering from hunger and poverty because of their faith. Consider this verse, “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted to every man that had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” (Acts 2:44-47), Imagine this happening today. We have before us a church that exhibited what the true church is supposed to be. Note also the results, “That God added daily to the church those whom He chose to save.
7. The importance of praying.
How shall we express this matter of the importance of praying? It is one thing that Satan tries to keep us from doing. Prayer is the hand that reaches up to God to bring down His power and blessing. Who of us is worthy of this matter? Perhaps we may look inwardly and think: who am I to venture into this great responsibility? Even unsaved people know the value even though they do not understand what it is. Prayer starts with God. It is He who places the need and the desire in my heart to pray for others. All I could do at times is pray “Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief.” It is often when I feel powerless myself that God moves and enables me to pray effectively.
A brother and pastor will bring the churches importance into focus:
I sort of get frustrated when I hear a lot of talk about "The Church", because for me, through Christ (I know), it was the church that brought wholeness to a broken soul. As a successful business man in the 80's and 90's, I found myself searching for more. That search brought a life that I did not expect. It was a life of drug addiction that resulted in homeless and hopelessness.
After rehab, one day a man invited me to church. I remember it well. I remember the altar call. There I was full of tears and someone took my hand and walked with me to dedicate my life to Christ.
It was the Church that helped heal me.
It was the Church that helped nurture me back to health. It was the Church that brought fellowship to me. It was the Church that brought accountability to me. It was the Church that called me every Monday morning for weeks to see if I had any needs.
It was the Church that brought exhortation to me and called me a mighty man of God, even when I couldn't see it.
So, when I see the Church, I don't see what others see. Today, I teach that I am the church, and if I don't like what I see, I need to change me because I am that church that brought to me what others like me need.
Michel Green
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