You Must Be Born Again

Once again, welcome to all of the guests that are with us today. We here at SADAM are reaping the rewards of something we started doing about two years ago where we recognized that man in ourselves as people, we can have some good ideas and we can work really hard. But the only thing people can produce is what people can produce. However, if we are diligent and faithful to pray to our everlasting God and ask Him to do what He can do, ask Him to work according to His wisdom, then we will get what God can produce. I mean, the baptisms this morning, is that not a sign of what only God can do? Amen.

So, we take a part of our service every Sunday morning where we pray. We pray for specific needs. We pray out loud. We pray with faith because we believe that there is still an everlasting God who still hears the prayers of His people, who is still at work, like I said, making all things good in its time. So, I want to invite you to buddy up with the neighbor as we continue to pray for what Michael talked about this morning in the announcements. This month’s emphasis, we’re praying specifically for two things. The Janie Chapman offering, this goes towards state missions here in South Carolina. It’s a way for us to partner with other SBC churches as we are all pulling money to help start and strengthen churches as all the folks are moving into our state. You may be some of them. To which we say, man, welcome. We are so glad that you are here in Charleston and we are so glad that you are here at Salt Baptist Church this morning. So, we’re praying for the Janie Chapman offering. If you to contribute to that, like we said, we’ve got offer off offering envelopes on the back tables or you can use a normal one and just write that on the front.

As part of that, we are praying specifically for Storyline Church, a new church, Southern Baptist Church starting in Greenville, South Carolina. It’s being pastored by my buddy Jake Boram and his wife. As you guys understand, it’s usually a two for one special in ministry. So, Rachel is going to be highly involved in that as well. Specifically, they’ve got their first kind of interest meeting coming up next month where they’re asking people saying, “Hey, we’re starting a new church to reach lost people here in Greenville. Do you want to be part of it or not?” So, we are lifting them up. If you want to help contribute to the cost of the cost that it takes to start a new church, then man, ask me about that later and I’ll be happy to get you all the information.

So, what I want you to do right now, just buddy up with the neighbor. Pray for the Janie Chapman offering. Pray for Jake and Rachel with Storyline Church. And I’ll put a bow on it here in a second. Thank y’all.

Holy Spirit. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity that we all had this morning to witness a miracle or at least witness the the testific the the testifying to the miracle. Lord, it’s a miracle that Alex and Camden are spiritually alive. It’s a miracle that they have gone from death to life. As we’re going to look at in the passage this morning, it’s perfect timing on Your part, God, once again, as they were reborn like what Jesus told Nicodemus. It’s a miracle. Hey, God, we just get to behold that. Thank you, Lord. I pray for everybody in the room right now. God, there’s somebody in the room who has not yet experienced this miracle. There’s someone in the room who is still living in spiritual death. And I’m asking God that You would draw them into life. Holy Spirit, help me to be really sensitive to You. That as You want to communicate something to somebody, that I would listen to You. Help me to recognize that Your ways are higher than mine. Your power is greater than mine. And when You speak over the next few minutes, help me and everybody in this room to listen to Your voice. Like Samuel said, speak for your servants are listening. Speak because we need the words of life. Speak because we are utterly dependent on You. Lord, I want to thank you for Janie Chapman. I want to thank you for the life that she lived and the Women’s Missionary Union. Lord, such a a powerful force for good. I pray Lord as Saul and other SCBC churches are contributing funds. God, you Had multiplied those offerings like I like I learned about in Sunday school this morning, Lord. That as churches and as Christians, we would not fall into the trap either of wanting to hoard for ourselves nor of being anxious about tomorrow, but that we would seek first the kingdom and we would give what we have. Please. And God, in that that You would use those monetary gifts to make some good happen in the lives of lost people in our state.

Father, I want to thank You for Jake and Rachel. As Michael said in the announcements, God, You have revealed to them the need for another church in Greenville. And in that revealing to them, You have invited them to join You in starting it. So, I pray God, I pray that You would supernaturally bless their work. That Storyline Church, Lord, it would it would take off so well that they would have problems with all the people that are trying to come in and be part of this gathering. That You would use Storyline not just to become a cool hip church in Greenville. No, that You would use Storyline to make a a difference for the kingdom of God. That that lost people would become saved and saved people would be equipped and would find deeper joy in their relationship with You. God, please.

Father, thank You. Thank You for the opportunities that You are giving us here at SADM. Help us to continue to take them. Holy Spirit, once again, I ask that You would speak right now. You get a hold of this few moments that we would all walk out of here changed. It’s in Your great name that we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you all so much for joining me in that. I want to ask you a question as I open the sermon. You take me seriously on this. Are you really alive? You’ve got a pulse. Breath is coming in and out. But are you really alive? As you go through your day to day, as you live this upcoming week, as you go to your job, you make meals for the family, as you do your school assignments, are you alive? You know, many so-called Christians claim to be followers of Jesus but aren’t really alive or as Jesus would say, are not yet born again. Many folks do all of the Christian type things but without any actual love for God nor obedience to His commands.

You know, the worst part about it is that most of these folks, most of these folks who call themselves followers of Jesus, yet persist in their spiritual death are unaware. Jesus this morning, I trust, wants to cut through the veneer of someone’s religious activity and their spiritual legacy. And He wants to speak straight to the soul of someone in this room. Jesus wants to speak to the soul with an urgent plea and an invitation to stop living in death.

Man, there are so many things as followers of Jesus or as church people that we are tempted to equate with spiritual life. Like, let me put it this way. You’re here right now. Many people think, man, if I just go to church, that means I am spiritually alive. If I just go to women’s Bible study, if I just attend the men’s group that Michael is talking about, then that means I’m spiritually alive. Or other folks, man, they stroke a check or put a few dollars in the offering plate and they’re like, man, I tithe, I give my money, that means I am spiritually alive. Other people, this was me as a nine-year-old, they get baptized, man. If I just do this ceremony, that means I am spiritually alive. Or I’ll take the Lord’s supper here in a few weeks, that means I am alive. Or some of us, man, we have this mountaintop experience with God, maybe even at a youth camp or during a Sunday morning service or in a deer stand, and we have this sentimental experience, man, that means I’m alive. Others of folk, others of us, man, we just kind of white knuckle it through Christianity. Just man, I’m going to obey every last command as I see fit. And by my obedience, man, I know that means I’m alive because I’m doing it, man. I’m better than them. Turn to John chapter 3.

On the other hand, even more of our friends, co-workers, and neighbors are turning to other empty life sources, or what the Bible might call a broken well, a place where water ought to be coming, but it’s dry on the inside. They’re trying to find life that only God can give, but they’re looking in all the wrong places. Man, some of our friends are looking for life in romance and in the arms of someone that they can call theirs for the rest of their life. Some of our friends are looking for life in a job and a career, saying, “Man, if I just get that promotion, if I just land this partnership, if I can just get that job and that make that much money, that’ll mean I’m good. I am set. I am alive.” Other people are looking for life just purely in the dollars. I’m just going to stuff as much as I can in the savings and the investment account. I’m just going to save up as much as possible. And whatever that number is that I’m trying to get to, if I ever attain that number, that means I’m alive. People use that money. They try to buy things, the nice car, the house, the toys, the stuff, and they think, man, if I can just have the stuff, if I can keep up with the Joneses, that means I’m alive. Man, other people think that life is found in their ability to influence or control people. Man, I may not have all the money. I may not have all the stuff. I might not live in the nicest house, but man, people listen to me. And because of that, I know that I am somebody. I’m alive. Man, some people try to find life in substances, drugs, alcohol, looking to numb pain, looking for the next high to lift them up. It is so empty. Are you alive, man? Are you looking for life in all the religious stuff that Christians do? Are you looking for life in all of the offerings of the buffet of this world? Are you alive? John chapter 3, verses 1 through 13. Man, one of my favorite passages in the Bible. There’s a man from the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Him, that’s Jesus, at night, and said, “Rabbi, we know that You’re a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform these signs You do unless God were with Him.” Remember Jesus just turned all the water into wine at Cana and He’s doing other stuff. Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born again, he can’t see the kingdom of God.” “How can anybody be born when he’s old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” All the moms in the room said, “No.” Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he can’t enter the kingdom of God. Whoever is born of the flesh is flesh. But whatever is born of the Spirit, that is spirit.” Don’t be amazed. I told you that you must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. “How can these things be?” Nicodemus asked. “Are you a teacher of Israel and you don’t know these things?” Jesus replied, “Truly, I tell you, we speak what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but you do not accept our testimony. If I had told you about earthly things, and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” Verse 13. No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. This passage is so rich, we’re going to take it in two weeks. We’re not going to cover the next half of what Jesus continues to speak to Nicodemus, but I’ll leave you on the cliffhanger. It’s really good. You’re welcome to read it later this week, later this afternoon. Come back next Sunday, see us chop it up. John 3, verses 1-13. Jesus is imploring a really good, really influential man to be born again. He’s looking at a dead man saying, “Come to life.” I’ll ask a couple questions of the text to help us navigate it. The first one is, who is this guy He, Jesus, is talking to? Who exactly is Nicodemus? The author John describes him this way. Look back at verse one. He is a Pharisee. He is named Nicodemus. He is a ruler of the Jews. But he also comes to Jesus at night. This is pretty interesting. Going back preparing this week, Pharisees. To learn more about this, I just look up what what what is a Pharisee? I know they’re just a religious group in the Jewish people. The word Pharisee, the title for it is based off of this Hebrew word, the original language of the Old Testament, which means to separate. The Pharisees were a group of people that loved to separate. The crowd, the party is over there. The Pharisees, they’re way over here. Now, they’re not just trying to do some social distancing before it’s time, if you know what I mean. What the Pharisees—thank you, Rachel, for being the only person that laughed at that. 2026, we could laugh about CO at this point, right? Okay, maybe not. Okay, the Pharisees were a group of people that separated themselves with great distance from anything that would make them unclean before a holy God. If there was anything around them that could possibly taint their sanctity before God, they’d separate from it.

The Pharisees were so devout to this idea of separation in holiness that even though God only gave about 200 commands in the Old Testament, they wrote another 400 to keep distance even from those commands. To put it this way, in modern times, we like to think about how far can I push the envelope? How far can I go and it still be acceptable? How close can I get to the edge without falling off? Now, you may not see it. I’ve got my left big toes hanging over. I was going to put my whole right foot. This is how we live. Always teetering back and forth. Am I going to fall over the edge or not? The Pharisees way back here. They’re sitting over in this chair. They say, “Man, if you get out of the chair, who watch out, buddy. Something’s going to happen to you, you better check yourself.” That was the Pharisees.

The Pharisees had a group of super elite ruling, influential Pharisees called the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin is like this legal council. The Sanhedrin were the ones that helped protect Judaism as an institution or as an organization. The Sanhedrin ultimately is actually the ruling body that would condemn Jesus in the midnight trials and put Him on the cross. Nicodemus is one of those. He’s one of the members of the Sanhedrin. He is a ruler of the Jews. But he comes to Jesus at night. Obviously, Nicodemus is intrigued. You see, the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, and all of the Jews collectively have been yearning for this day when God’s promised savior and ruler was going to come to earth and remake everything, to put it all back correctly. They were waiting for this day. And what Jesus was doing, all these signs, it was indisputable. Jesus was at least sent by God.

Now, they haven’t heard a whole lot of Jesus’s inflammatory teachings yet. But what they have seen, they have heard the story of Jesus turning 150 gallons of water into wine at a wedding. They’ve heard the stories of Jesus healing people during the Passover week. They hear they have heard about all these things. It’s it’s clear there’s something different about Jesus. So Nicodemus goes to Him. But he goes at night. You see Nicodemus with all of his influence, with all of his clout, with all of his respectability recognizes he’s got something to lose. Nicodemus playing it super cautious. I don’t want to be seen with Him in the daytime lest anything bad come back on me. I’m going to go to Jesus at night time.

The Gospel of John. If you track this, write this down. The author of John will use darkness as a sign of spiritual darkness. In fact, even in verses 19-21, we’ll cover this next week. Jesus equates spiritual life with light and He equates spiritual death with darkness. So for Nicodemus to come to the light of the world as described in John chapter 1 at a time when it was physically dark reflects back on Nicodemus that he is still living in the dark. He is spiritually dead. That’s Nicodemus. Somebody I think honestly all of us can relate to. Now we may not be that influential. We may not see ourselves that way. We may not see ourselves as somebody who is really good at keeping all the rules, but we all have something to lose when it comes to following Christ.

Man, for you, you might have to lose a relationship in order to follow Jesus. For you to follow Jesus might mean saying no to some success at your work because you can’t keep doing underhanded things because now you live for integrity. For you to follow Jesus will require a loss of time or money as you contribute to what God is doing and as you serve people. For you to follow Jesus for all of us requires a loss of our control.

As we no longer rule our lives, but we let God rule our lives through His revealed Word, the Bible. Mean for all of us as we follow Jesus, there ought to be a loss of some of our own habits and comforts as we pursue spending time with the One who has saved us. Man, to follow Jesus requires loss. But I will tell you, and if I could tell Nicodemus, I tell you, it is worth it. There is no dollar you will spend on Jesus that God won’t carefully take care of and usually give back to you. There is no relationship you can give up for following Jesus that Jesus Himself says He will reg. There is no amount of time you can lose serving God that God will not honor and multiply back to you. Any sacrifice and loss we embrace for the sake of following Jesus, it is worth it.

So that’s Nicodemus. When Nicodemus starts talking to Jesus, Jesus in verse three takes a hard left turn and He mentions something called the kingdom of God, which He brings back up in verse five. So the second question I’m asking this morning of this passage is what is the kingdom of God? If you read the Gospel of Matthew, you see the kingdom of God mentioned about 20 times. You read the Gospels of Mark and Luke, it’s about the same amount of times. The kingdom of God keeps coming up. In fact, in the Gospel of Mark, whenever Jesus begins His public ministry after He Himself is baptized by John the Baptist, Jesus, it says in the Gospel of Mark, goes out preaching the gospel of the kingdom. And at the very end of the gospels, after Jesus has risen from dead, before He ascends to heaven, He commisss His disciples to go and make more disciples of the kingdom of God. From beginning to end, Jesus’s ministry and His preaching were consumed with the kingdom of God.

So what is it? It is where God’s authority is assumed. His love is cherished. His presence is wanted. His justice is upheld. His joy is embraced. His works are evident. His sovereignty is surrendered to. His lordship is trusted. His wisdom is followed. His commands are obeyed. His holiness is revered. His name is honored. And His mission is followed. That is the kingdom of God.

Now get this. God is sovereign over all peoples, all powers, and all places. Nothing happens in the entire universe that is beyond God’s ability to upheld or push down or outside of His awareness. There is not a single there’s not a single scrap of dust floating in this air that God is not infinitely aware of in this moment. There is no ruler over any group of people on our country that God can’t thumb down in an instant if He wants to. God is completely sovereign over all things. Right? But that sovereignty is only embraced by some. That’s where God’s kingdom is. God’s kingdom transcends our geopolitical boundaries. God’s kingdom better be broader than the four walls of this church. God’s kingdom can envelop your kitchen. It can envelop your workplace. It can show up wherever you go because we as God’s people are the ambassadors of God’s kingdom.

You see, for the Jews, prior to Jesus, the kingdom of God was also a prophetic hope, an endtime destination, where God would once again visit His people. He would vanquish their enemies and He would set the world back right. Christ came preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Imagine being a Jewish person yearning for this. And there’s this guy who’s working miracles saying the kingdom of God is here. Imagine how amped you’d be. Man, it’d be like if your college football team won the national championship like 10 times in a single season, yet better, man. It’d be like all your kids ate all their dinner and said thank you and washed the dishes. But better, man. It’d be like all your money just kept blossing, blossoming, and multiplying in your accounts without you doing anything. But better. That’s what these Jewish people were yearning for.

So Jesus comes preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Yet Jesus’s view of the kingdom clashed with the Jews common desires. In the Gospel of Matthew in the sermon on the mount, Jesus’s coming out party as a preacher. He says, “Blesseds, blessed are the meek, not the strong. in my kingdom. Blessed are the hungry, not the full. Blessed are those who are hated for my name, not the socially acceptable. Blessed are the poor in spirit, not the rich in wealth. Jesus came preaching a message that goes against what the common Jewish person was yearning for in their minds, but they were thirsting for in their souls. For us, 2,000 years later, we recognize the kingdom of God has already arrived in Jesus as evidenced by the church. We would not be here as part of God’s people if the kingdom of God has not already been inaugurated here. Yet, we also recognize the world is not yet as it should be. Right? Man, we still have mudslides in Nepal that wipe out entire villages. We have terrorist attacks on our country 25 years ago, wiping away 3,000 people. We have cancer snuffing out lives and loved ones. We recognize that Jesus has started something good, but it’s not as good as it can be.

So, we await a day when our Messiah will return to dwell with His people in a new heavens and a new earth. Oh man. Where all death, all darkness, all disease, all debt, all disappointment, and all despair is done with. Amen. We will all live forever in a perfect harmony with God, with others, this world, and ourselves. Amen. The kingdom of God offers a universal hope. Lives full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Totally healthy bodies and minds that never wear out, never get sick, never die. Souls that are free from demonic influences now ravaging them. Minds free of postpartum depression, Parkinson’s disease, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Financial states of security and surplus where we never have to fear bankruptcy, never wonder how we’ll put food on the table, never dread opening the bank statement, and never doubt the promise of good returns. Don’t you want that? >> Hallelujah. Thank you, Becky. Don’t we want that? May we all want the kingdom of God? You may not be sure what to call it, but that’s what you want for us. We can call it heaven on earth living in you. That’s what you’ve been made for. That is our eternal hope.

But it doesn’t just have to be what we wait for later. It’s what we can embrace and start living in right now. You may have the financial despair, man. You may have that broken family where everybody’s arguing with each other. You may have the mind that’s not as sharp as it used to be and it’s starting to slip. You might have the body that’s sick and you don’t know how to get right. But you can still live in God’s kingdom right now, trusting that your aching back, your broken marriage, the nagging thirst for alcohol, those things don’t have to control you. They don’t have to be your king. Christ can be your king. And you lean into what He has for you now as you await a day in the future where everything is made right. Amen, Sam.

So, how do we get it? How do we live in God’s kingdom? I tell you what, it’s not through baptism. It’s not through putting money in a plate. It’s not through tossing Hail Marys. It’s not through evangelism. As much as I love evangelism, it’s not through just keeping a checklist on your Bible reading program. It’s not through saying grace over dinner tonight. It’s not through any of those things. We can’t force it. As Jesus explained, look at what He says. Verse six or verse eight, sorry. The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it’s going. So it is with everybody born of the Spirit. You can’t force it. You can’t coerce it. You can’t control it. It is a work of God on and in the soul. It is invisible yet seen through the works of your life. It is uncontrolled yet harnessable through your own willingness. While you and me, we cannot force God to work. We cannot make ourselves come alive. We cannot make God do anything. We can embrace God’s work and we can ready ourselves for it.

Think about every time you go downtown for work or to go on a nice date or to go back to the hospital, you pass, you’re on 17, you’re passing over those bridges and you look to the right out to the harbor and you see some of those sailboats out in the water. Some of them got, you know, little motors on the back of them, but most of those sailboats aren’t actually being driven around by those motors. What’s, what’s powering the sailboat? Say it again. It’s the wind. I don’t have a sail up here. Does me holding a sail by itself make anything happen? Am I forcing the breeze to come along the top of the ocean just by having A sail? No, but if I put that sail up, if I crank on that rigging, and if I let that canvas fly and it’s taut and it’s ready, what’s going to happen when the breeze blows across? Say it like people that are confident. What happens when the breeze blows up against that sail?

It’s going to move. It’s going to do something.

Man, that’s how we are with the Holy Spirit, man. You can’t force the wind to blow. You can’t make God do anything. But you can lift your sail. You can put yourself in a position that when God blows on your life, when God blows on Saltan Baptist Church, when God blows through your home, when God in His ruach, His numa, His breath as He’s described in the Bible, when God just—you can receive it and go. You can’t make the wind do anything.

But man, we’re at the beach last weekend hanging out and there’s this other family and this other way more prepared dad who has a kite, not me. I’m a little jealous of this guy and I’m like, “Come on, man.” He’s got the kite and he’s got the kid, and man, the guy unspoils it and he’s just running off, you know, doing whatever he’s doing. And the kite takes off. It flings up into the air and my son looks at that. He’s like, “That’s a cool kite, Dad.” Like, “You’re all right, bud. I’m sorry. He’s got a tiger kite, Dad.”

The dad didn’t make the kite do anything. It wasn’t even his idea for the wind to blow. But the dad knew, man, I’ve got a sail right here. If I just toss it up in the air when the wind is blowing, it’s going to do what it’s designed to do.

That’s what you are. You’re a sail. You’re a kite. You’re a sailboat. And God has made your life so that whenever He blows, man, you can catch that and embrace the life that God has for you.

Man, that’s why some of us are so tired in our Christianity. We are sailboats in the middle of the harbor with all the rigging down and the canvas spooled on the deck of the boat. And we are working hard, man. I’m going to read my Bible. I’m going to share the gospel today. I’m going to give my money today. I’m going to join the women’s ministry which will start meeting tomorrow night at—when? >> Tomorrow morning at 9:30. Tomorrow night at 6 o’clock. Man, I’m going to sign up for Wes’s men’s group which meets >> Sunday evening at 6. I’m going to do it, man. I’m going to white-knuckle myself through Christianity. And our sailboat’s not going anywhere. And we’re exhausted and we’re tired because we have all the tools at our disposal, but we’re not actually catching the wind with the Holy Spirit.

Man, Jesus is looking at Nicodemus and He’s saying, “Hey, you can’t force it to happen.” But God wants to make you come alive. He wants to blow on your life.

If you’re going to remember one thing from this message this morning, I want it to be this: The Holy Spirit births us into God’s kingdom. Your mama may have birthed you into the world. Your mom did birth you into the world, but the Holy Spirit is the one who births you into the kingdom.

Man, Jesus is looking at a really successful guy. Man, I think compared to Nicodemus, all of us would fall pretty short. Nicodemus had spent his whole life as a professional studying the Old Testament. Man, Nicodemus, as a Pharisee—recognized as a Pharisee—would have had books of the Old Testament memorized by heart. You could have started reciting in the book of Leviticus and Numbers, and Nicodemus would have sat back and said, “Oh, yeah. I love that one.” And he’d just keep going, man. You could pull obscure psalms and Nicodemus would finish the psalm for you. I mean, you could ask Nicodemus any question about Old Testament theology or history and he would have had the answer for you immediately.

Not only that, Nicodemus was a super upright guy. Remember, his job was to keep himself separate from anything that could be deemed sin. Man, you look at Nicodemus and his life was straight edge. It was pure. It was clean. Not a single bit of impurity to do with him. He never had a business practice that looked shady. He never had a relationship with a woman that was not his wife. Man, he was clean. That’s Nicodemus.

Yet Jesus looks at him in all of His religious performance.

and all of His moral purity and says, “You are dead.” See, here’s the problem. We are physically alive yet born spiritually dead. It’s the problem. Ever since Adam and Eve broke God’s heart and broke God’s rule, every person born after them has been born spiritually dead. And the thing is dead people can’t do a whole lot. I’ve conducted a fair amount of funerals. Never once have I ever seen the dead person come back out of the casket. If that happens, I’m gone. I will not lead you courageously into that future. That that’ll that’ll not be me. Dead people can’t do anything if you if you for you know forgive how I’m speaking about it. And God says that’s that’s who we are. We’re dead. We’re hopeless. We’re desperate. Yet God Yet God makes a way when there is no other way. And what’s His name? Jesus, the way and the truth. And who? The life.

You see, Jesus has the authority and the ability to give that spiritual birth. Look at verse 13. Jesus gives you His credentials. Nicodemus comes to Jesus says, “Hey, I recognize you are a teacher and that you are doing crazy signs. Man, God must have sent you.” Jesus says, “Yeah, I’m a teacher. I am doing signs. God didn’t just send me.” No, this is who I am. I am the one who descended from heaven. I am the Son of Man. I am the anointed Savior of the world. I am the promised one. I am God in the flesh. That’s who I am. And if I’m God in the flesh, then man, that disease doesn’t have to have the final word on you. That person’s opinion doesn’t have to have the final word on you. That broken marriage doesn’t have to have the final word on you. That financial struggle doesn’t have to have the final word on you because I am God. I’m God, Jesus says. And that’s really good news for people like us.

See, this is the gospel of Jesus Christ is that God has made us for eternity to live with Him in harmony. God made us so that we would enjoy a relationship of peace and connection with Him that would never be broken by anything. He made us so that we would thirst for Him. Yet Adam and Eve, our spiritual and genealogical parents, look at God with His one rule. And instead of listening to God and His kindness and His promises, they listen to Satan and his lies and deception. And they chose to follow the lie and trade God for something else. Ever since then, you and me have all fallen short of God’s glorious standard. Ever since Adam and Eve, you and I have all sinned against God. Ever since them, you and I have encountered temptation on the road to life and crashed time after time after time. We’re dead, brother. We can’t do anything to make ourselves alive. No amount of good works, no amount of churchy activities. We’re hopeless until Jesus comes.

And Jesus lives the perfect life you’ve been designed to live. He fully satisfies every single command of God. He keeps the rules all the time. He is the one that truly separated Himself from uncleanness and unholiness while not separating Himself from the people who deal with those things every day. The book of Hebrews, in fact, says that we do not have a high priest who’s unable to sympathize with our neediness. No, we have a high priest who is tempted and tried in every single way. Yet, guess what, church? Never once falling to that temptation. Isn’t that good news, man? Look at Jesus, that incredible example. Look at Jesus, the one that if I just work hard enough, maybe I’ll be like Him one day. No, look at Jesus, the one who was slain on the cross for your sin. The one who said, “I’m not satisfied to keep all the rules for My benefit.” No, I came to keep all the rules for yours, man. I came to keep the rules for you, Rhett. Jesus is in heaven saying, “I came to keep the rules for you, King.” Man, Rick, Jesus is in heaven saying, “I came to keep the rules for you.” Because we can’t do it. We can’t do it in ourselves, man. Try to string together five good minutes of being a good person, and we fall woefully short at about the two second mark because we are dead. But according to the book of Ephesians, by God’s grace, we have been saved through faith. Somebody this morning needs to lift the sail and be born again. Let’s bow our heads, close our eyes, And I want to teach you how to lift that sail. If you came in this morning recognizing you are physically alive but spiritually dead, thirsty, yearning for something real while never having tasted it, man, dissatisfied in your soul, more consumed with your problems and your fears and your frustrations than the goodness of God, then you are a candidate for a miracle this morning. And I want to teach you how to catch it. It’s simple, but I can’t do it for you, man. And if that’s you this morning, I plead with you. You would confess your need to God. You say, “God, I am a sinner. I’m dead spiritually. I’ve got nothing. I’ve seen that money and substances and relationships can’t satisfy this problem. I need You, God.” You’d say that to Him, “God, I’m a sinner and I need You.”

The wind’s starting to blow. After you raise that sail of recognizing your neediness, you would secure the rigging and you would ask for forgiveness. You say, “God, forgive me of my sin on the perfection of Jesus. Forgive me for that lying. Forgive me for that affair. Forgive me for my alcoholism. Forgive me of my self-righteousness. Forgive me of my covetousness, of my greed, of my gossip. Forgive me.” It’s about to blow. You say, “God, thank You. Thank You for life. Thank You, God. God, I don’t know how to work the boat of Christianity. I don’t know how to sail this thing, but I trust You’re blowing and I just want to go where You want me to go.” You pray that to Him.

God, I pray for this room and I’m begging You would have breathed life on somebody for the very first time. God, I trust that if You did, You will make that known soon in Your time. God, for anybody in the room that’s not yet ready to give themselves to You, would You crack through the hardness? Would You melt what’s standing in their way? Would You go through what’s keeping them from You? Would You cross the chasm from You to them? Would You woo them into Your love and Your family, Your kingdom, God, please? And for all of us, God, who are born again, for all of us who live in the kingdom, help us to live for the kingdom, to invite others in, to lean in through helping others follow You through daily habits of enjoying You, God. Help us to live in this kingdom. To catch the breeze, to catch the wind that we can just sail through life by Your power, not ours.

Man, as I wrap up this time with our heads still down, I was really curious, man, if you prayed that prayer of giving your life to Jesus earlier, would you just raise your hand for me, please? All right. Thank you. You can put your hands down. I just want to make myself really clear. If that was like the first time you ever did that, if you’ve never given your life to Jesus before, do you think that that just happened? Would you raise your hand? Okay, man. I’m really proud. I’ll be up here at the front. I’m ready to pray with anybody. If you got something going on in your life and you need support, I’ll pray with you. If you’re one of the folks that raised their hand the second time, I’ll pray with you. If you got questions about how to catch the wind and live this life of Christianity, I’ll pray with you.

Holy Spirit, we trust You to work. We trust You to move. And it’s in Your great name we pray right now. Amen.