Being Born Again // Dying to Live, Part 4

We’ve all made mistakes in life. I have. You have.  Imagine, imagine if we could have another crack. You know, a new life with the slate wiped clean.

This week so far, we’ve been looking at the paradoxes in life. In particular, how on the one hand everything tells us we should put ourselves first, that we’re the centre of the universe, but on the other hand, the bleak reality of that kind of approach, well it just doesn’t work.

People are just dying to have a great life but so often they focus on the short-term cost and the changes they need to make to have that life. In a sense, well we have to die to live. We have to bite the bullet in the short term to get the value and the quality in the medium and longer terms. But what if you and I could have new start? What if the slate could be wiped clean? What if you could have a new life? What if "Born Again" weren’t just some religious nut kind of cliché? What if "Born Again" were new reality in your life?

Yesterday if you joined me, I mentioned that I recently celebrated my 60th birthday. So 60 years ago, Berni was born yesterday, which means today 47 years ago, I was one day old. I literally had my whole life ahead of me. What if … what if we have a new start, knowing everything we know now? Wouldn’t that be cool? Of course, hope as we may, we just can’t turn the clock back. But what we can do, is we can admit that some things in our lives aren’t working, something’s missing, something’s not right and we can decide to do something about it.

I like the fact that Jesus is an edgy, profound kind of guy. He cuts through all the froth and bubble and goes straight to the point. He was trying to explain to his disciples, why He had to go to the cross and die.

Now for his Disciples who have been wandering around at the Jesus bible school for the last three-and-a-half years with him, and they’ve been watching him zap lepers and heal them, and they’ve been watching him cast demons out of people, and they’ve been watching Him give sight to the blind. For Jesus to say to them, ‘Well guys, umm time’s come, I’m going to be crucified next Friday’, that’s not a very palatable outcome to the Disciples, it’s scary, it’s confusing. How do you explain that to the Disciples? Well this is how Jesus explained it, he said:

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed, but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their lives will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life.

Whenever Jesus says, "I tell you the truth", it’s like He’s grabbing us by the shoulders and saying, "Wake up, this is really important, listen to me, I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it just remains a single seed but if it dies it produces many seeds. The person who loves their life will lose it but if you’re prepared to lose your life in this world, you’ll have eternal life."

It’s a great picture, most of these people knew what kernels of wheat looked like, even if we only ever see them once they’ve been crunched up in the supermarket inside a loaf of bread, right. These people knew what seeds looked like, what wheat looked like, they probably touched it and walked through the fields and were close to it. If you live in a rural community maybe it’s the same for you, it’s not for me.

And He was saying, "Look a seed can’t grow into a new plant until it dies", and that’s true. If you’ve ever tried to take an apple seed, when you were a little kid, eat the apple, take the seed, plant it in the ground, wait for something to come out … nothing comes out because first, that seed has to dry up and shrivel up and in a sense die before it can become an apple tree. What’s that mean for you and me in our lives? Yesterday if you were with us, and if you weren’t you can listen to that program again online at www.christianityworks.com anytime, just have a listen.

But what we were talking about was the fact that many people have this template dropped on their head that says, "Me, me, me, me. I am in the centre of the universe and everything else has to revolve around me and has to come my way and has to flow into me." This dying that Jesus talks about is inverting that, this dying says "I’m no longer at the centre of the universe, no, no, God – Jesus is at the centre of my universe." That’s a big transition, that is a big step, that means abdicating the flow, that means subjecting ourselves to God, to Jesus.

And then Jesus says, "Take up your cross, go on, pick up your cross, come follow me." Maybe again, a cross is just a little gold thing that hangs around people’s necks. When he was saying it, crosses were things that people got nailed to, and died gruesome deaths. He was saying, "be prepared to die." In fact, Jesus even said, "Take up your cross daily, die daily, die every day, put yourself last and Me first, follow me."

It is so easy to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, it’s so easy to believe that God has done this but when we believe in Jesus it changes what we do, it changes who we are, it changes our behaviour, it sets us free from some of this stuff in our life that we know isn’t working.

But we hang on to it because, I don’t know, we just hang onto it because it’s all we know. Take up your cross and follow me is not an intellectual choice, it is a life choice, it is a decision to lay down our lives day after day, after day and follow Jesus, in partnership with Jesus and say. "Jesus you know something, you are now in the driver’s seat of my life." I’m going where you’re taking me and I know there’s a cost, I know there are changes, I know there are lifestyle choices that I have to make in getting my life together but you are going to be the Lord of my life.

The Apostle Paul writes in a letter to the Roman Church 2000 years ago, he says:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart, you’ll be saved.

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, not in an intellectual sense, not in a distance sense, in a real life sense, "Jesus is the Lord of my life". You look at all the paradoxes and contradictions in life; family and work, and relationships, and a sense of destiny, our spirituality. Things should be working but often they’re not. Even for people who’ve said I believe in Jesus in my head, but haven’t believed with their lives.

Often it’s not, something’s not together, something’s broken … something’s missing. Is it time to say, "Jesus is my Lord"? Not a half-decision, not a part-decision, an all of me decision. Me, my life, my world view, my wealth, my behaviour, my feelings, my hopes, my dreams, every corner, every crevice, every part of me, I lay it all down at the foot of the cross and I’m going to die once and for all to this world and rise again a new person, a new life, a new start in Jesus Christ. Forgiven, made new, all the old things have passed away, everything is new, I wanna be "Born Again". And once we take that step, and my challenge for you today is, have you? Will you take that step? No matter who we are, where we are on our spiritual journey, there’s a cost, lay down everything, follow Jesus.