Naila is Baptized!
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“Spiritually Brand New, Pt.2”

Preached by Mike Underhill, 11/04/2012
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John 3:1-7
• Jesus is teaching Nicodemus how to enter the Kingdom of God. Nicodemus starts the conversation with Jesus unusually, saying how awesome Jesus is. Jesus cut to the chase through the flattery and preaches how to enter the Kingdom and be born again. You can’t see God’s Kingdom unless you’re born again. This isn’t a 21st Century angel on the Bible. This has been there for all time!
• When you come into God’s house, you need to act the right way – just as if you entered your physical father’s house, you must obey his rules.

John 15:5
• Apart from God you can do nothing! You can make a difference in this world, but only with God!

Ephesians 4:17-24
• There are two people – the old self (with corrupted desires) and the new self (focused on Jesus and the truth)
• With the old self, there is a darkened understanding, futile thoughts, lack of understanding of God, and ignorance due to hardened hearts! Apart from God, our heart is hardened and we lost all sensitivity! One day away from God and you notice that you’re not the same person! Your heart gets hard so fast!
• We lose all sensitivity and we no longer care for others and we get a lust for more of our central desires. A continual giving in to our desires. When we get far from God and give up on Him, we live for our sinful pleasures and we no longer have hope for ourselves or expectations for anyone around us!
• We don’t just follow Jesus in His actions; we also follow Him completely in heart.
• We are a part of God’s family once baptized (Acts 2:38) and participate in the death burial and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6:1-4), and our spiritual family is just like if not closer than our physical family, and we need to be truthful to each other and speak the truth in love!
• What price would we pay for the family of God? It’s worth everything!! It’s inconvenient and costs not only money, but even time to invest in the truth in love with our family.
• What’s your price to speak the truth in love? Even if you lose people you love by telling them the truth! Will you love them enough to tell them the truth?

Ephesians 4:25-28
• We won’t even let the sun go down before we deal with the conflict that we need to deal with among each other!
• If we don’t have the conviction to deal with conflict and resolve with each other in God’s Kingdom, then we are each responsible for the lessening of greatness that God’s Kingdom can be!
• God’s children cannot steal! So we must work hard and earn so that we can share with those in need!
Ephesians 5:1-6
• Within God’s church and His holy people, there is the standard of purity! There cannot be anything to corrupt God’s people or His Kingdom.
• If only we could keep God’s word in our heart, then we would have spared ourselves from so much pain that our sin causes in our lives and how it separates us from God!

John 3:19-21
• Two places you are in – in the dark or in the light. When in the dark, you don’t want to talk about what’s really going on because it’s embarrassing and because we don’t want to repent! They have fear to expose the truth in their life! To be made new, we have to walk in the light and be real about the things that are difficult to talk about!

1 John 1:9
• The purpose of baptism, even as we continue to sin, is to remain open about our sin, and that’s what purifies us from all righteousness and continues to make us spiritually new. Just talking about our sin allows God to purify out hearts! Just like physically vomiting, there is no “good time” to do it! But once you get it over with, you feel so much better! God needs to be No. 1 and NO idols in our life!
• As we continually get open about our sin, God is continually renewing us! As we continue to get open, although we continue to sin, we are perpetually in the light!

Jeremiah 17:5-10
• Idol is something that you are devoted to with reverence and adoration! Two different places to be – relying on man or relying on God. The person who relies on man/flesh will eventually get dried out and wither away! But the person who relies on God will be fruitful!
• Our hearts are deceitful – so our two options are to either live according to our heart or live according to God’s word! Although our society tells us if our heart says it then we should do it! We cannot listen to what our heart says – it will deceive us! The Bible doesn’t change, our hearts change! Our truth and foundation of security must be in the Word of God.
• Your heart isn’t looking out for your best interest, spiritually thinking. Our heart (and our body) wants to do things the easy way! We cannot trust our heart! We cannot have a blind adoration to what our heart says! What’s the truth? How we feel or the Word of God?

Ezekiel 36:24-27
• With a heart that wants to follow God’s word, that’s amazing! We will come to do great things!
Revelation 21:1-5
• God says we have a new home and it’s not in the world! It’s with God in heaven. And when you understand that’s where your home is, we understand we cannot live for what’s here on Earth!
• When you realize your home is in Heaven, it makes it easy to give everything up here! That is a scary teaching for the people who live for this world! We are making a better investment when we invest eternally!

Luke 18 – God says all things are impossible
Matthew 11 – God will give us a rest
2 Corinthians 11 – God’s grace is sufficient
Proverbs 3 – God directs our steps
Philippians 4 – God says we can do all things
Romans 8 – God says it’s all worth it – we will be more than conquerors
1 John 1 – If we can’t forgive ourselves, God says he will forgive us
1 Peter 5 – Cast all our anxieties for God
Hebrews 13 – God will never leave or forsake us!