He Was Born So We Can Be Reborn
Nathan Adams · Tidal Church Moncton · December 24, 2022 · New Traditions series
Nathan Adams looks at Isaiah's promise, the birth stories of Jesus and John 1 to show that Christ was born so we could be born again. Like a newborn, we cannot create new life ourselves, but can receive it as God's gift of grace.
More from Nathan Adams · The New Traditions series
Topics: Faith, Grace, Christmas
Transcript
[0:00] This is Hank. Can And he is three months old. Lindsay and Mark are loaning him to us for a few moments, so we can talk about babies. You know when a baby's born? It rips the fabric of reality right apart for those new parents, doesn't it, Hank? All the sudden they feel all this love gushing out of them like they never felt before. Everything's reorienting right around you. And man, they're busy. You take up all their life, but yet they feel like they're getting life in a way they never expected before.
[0:46] And the parents look at one another, they say, did we do that? And they realize that something sacred has been given to them beyond themselves. When God wanted to rip apart the fabric of our world, He came as a baby. 700 years before the birth of Christ, the prophet Isaiah said, look, I will give you a sign. The virgin will give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Immanuel, which means God with us. And Isaiah continued, he said, for those who walk in deep darkness, a light will dawn. For to us a child is given, to us a Son is born, and He will have the government upon His shoulders. His name will be Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.
[1:48] And so when the time came for Jesus to be born, angels ripped apart the night sky, announcing His birth. First to Mary came the angel and said, you are going to have a child, not by the normal means, but the Holy Spirit will directly create this child in your womb, causing you to conceive. And she said, let it be for me the way you've said it. And gave her consent. Then another angel appeared to her fiancé Joseph and said, Mary is going to be miraculously with child, and this child you will call Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins.
[2:33] And when the baby was born, angels appeared in the night skies to shepherds and said, the Savior has been born in the city of David. Go, and you will find Him wrapped in swaddling clothes. And they went, and they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. Well, Hank, what's your life goals? Why are you here? Do you know the meaning of your life yet? Well, if you want to, you could come back to church. I'll every Sunday and in January, and we'll talk about what's the point of life, you know, that's what we're talking about. So, if you're up for it, come on back, okay?
[3:21] But you know, Hank, when Jesus was born, there was a point to Him coming, wasn't there? And since I got to talk about Him now, and no one's listening to me and just looking at you, I'm going to give you back, you wonderful little man, to your dad. What a cutie. In the Gospel of John we get the reason why Jesus came. It says, the true Light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, yet the world did not know Him. He came to the people that were His own, and His own people did not accept Him.
[4:12] But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the power to become children of God, who were born not of blood or the will of the flesh or the will of man, but of God. Jesus came and was born so that we could be reborn. He didn't just come so that we could date our entire history, divide again too from His birth. And today we are 2022-odd years from His birth. He did not come, I even think, in a secondary or third manner so that we could have amazing Christmas movies about poor, available, attractive, you know, young widower and how, who surprisingly find attractive women that, and they have, and they fall in love. So I don't think it's that, and I don't even think He primarily came to show us love, although He did on the cross and showed us what life is about.
[5:17] He really came. He was born so we could be born again. Now, if there's one thing a baby can't do is decide to be born. Would you agree? Yeah. It's something that happens to you. You're completely dependent on the mother's womb on life, the miracle of life itself. And so when we think about spiritual rebirth, there's a parallel here. A theologian named Ingolf Dalferth. Great name if you're from Germany. He said this: I cannot switch beliefs on and off at will, simply deciding to accept as true what I did not accept as true yesterday, or to voluntarily change from knowing about God to knowing God.
[6:20] Next slide, please. Unless God makes Himself present and known to me, I cannot come to know Him. Unless He communicates Himself to us only in Jesus Christ and through the Spirit, who assures us of the truth of the gospel message. Mary didn't decide to have this miracle happen within her. It was announced to her, and what she did was she gave her consent to it. In a few moments we're going to sing "Silent Night," "Holy Night," and the sanctuary will become dim. And a candle will be lit and then passed around, passed along one to another, and this place will be filled with candlelight. It's simply beautiful.
[7:12] When that light comes, you didn't create it. You just receive it, right? You light it, and you pass it on. And it's very similar to that with spiritual life. Something happens as the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and illuminates us. A tearing and ripping of our fabric of reality starts to happen. And we start to think, there is more to life. Like a new parent, we start to say, what would happen if I reorient my life around this? And that, my friends, is a miracle when that starts to happen. We often think of ourselves as these wonderfully free human beings because we can choose all kinds of things in our ordinary lives, but when it comes to God, we have a free will that works best on the no setting.
[8:06] What's the first thing a child learns to say? No. And we are the same. We easily say no to God, and we do so with a misconception in our minds that at some point, a time of our choosing, we might say yes. My friends, saying yes to God and being spiritually reborn, for starters, that's nothing you can do on your own. You're talking about a miracle. You're talking about God coming and giving you a clean slate because Jesus Christ died for your sins and you receive Him. We're talking about forgiveness of sins. We're talking about new life, spiritual life where there had been death, and a connection with God. We're talking about a connection that you can live from day in, day out, depending on Him and receiving downloads of love and peace and joy, and that is a miracle that you can't create on your own, nor is it something that you can easily just say yes to, because when you say yes to God, you're stepping outside yourself.
[9:14] If there's one thing social media has figured out, we're terrible at stepping outside ourselves. We're self-obsessed, narcissistic-tendency human beings, all of us. Right here. But when God comes and begins to illuminate your heart, He invites you to step outside yourself, and He gives you the power to do something that it is not within your own power to do. And so the Gospel of John said He gave power to become children of God. When God wanted to do a miracle, and Mary, she just consented. And you can do that today.
[10:00] Because as the Word of God has been shared with you in song and worship, for some of you, you feel this faith starting to rise up. You feel reality changing. It's a holy moment. In Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, it says, "For it is by grace that you have been saved through faith." But catch this. And this, what's the, this, it's faith, and this is not from yourselves. It is the gift of God. So if tonight, right now, faith is starting to rise up in you, and desire for God and to have Him come into your life, I want you to know that that is a holy moment. It's a special time. It may not be repeated. You see, the Grinch had an opportunity, right?
[11:00] But he only got one. Maybe tonight's your opportunity. And maybe in another moment you will slip back into your own routines, your opinions, your justifications. But tonight, the Holy Spirit has opened your heart. And so I invite you to receive the light tonight. As the lights are dim now for our candlelight, I want to invite you to do something. When the candle comes to you, I want you to say this: I receive the light. Every one of you can say that, no matter what you believe about Jesus, because you can receive light. You can receive good feelings about peace and joy.
[11:48] But as this candlelight is shared through this congregation tonight, I invite you to say, "I receive the light," and to say it from your heart, to say, "I receive spiritual rebirth through Christ right now." Whether it is a restarting of your faith journey or a brand new commencement, I receive the light. That faith arise in this place tonight as the gift of God and light our darkness.