#140 - Joby Martin // Born Again: Understanding True Salvation

Jesus meets Nicodemus where he is—confused about salvation—and patiently explains that eternal life isn't achieved through works but received through spiritual rebirth.

• Nicodemus approaches Jesus at night with questions about entering God's kingdom
• Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be "born again" to see the kingdom of God
• Nicodemus misunderstands, thinking in physical rather than spiritual terms
• Jesus explains that spiritual birth comes through water and the Spirit, not human effort
• Unlike other religions where humans must ascend to God, Christianity reveals God who descended to us
• Just as newborns don't work to be born, salvation is received rather than achieved
• Religious people often struggle with grace, believing they must earn salvation
• The gospel is not that we first loved God but that God first loved us

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Chapters

• 0:01 Welcome to The Daily Blade
• 0:20 Nicodemus Questions Jesus at Night
• 1:44 Born Again vs. Works-Based Righteousness
• 3:09 Salvation Received, Not Achieved
• 5:34 Final Thoughts and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Speaker 2: 0:20

All right, welcome back. Day two. We're gonna pick it up in verse three. Again, this is Nicodemus coming to Jesus at night with some questions. And again, one of the things that's really cool is that Nicodemus has lots of questions and Nicodemus doesn't understand the nature of God, he doesn't understand the nature of salvation, and you're going to see it very, very clearly in this dialogue that Jesus has with him. But what I love is that, even though Nicodemus is a teacher of the scriptures and even though he is in a place of authority, jesus is going to meet him right where he is and he's going to help him understand. He doesn't necessarily scold him or chastise him and say why don't you go off and learn some stuff and come back when you have a greater understanding? That's not what he does. He meets us right where we are.

Speaker 2: 1:08

John, chapter three, beginning in verse three, says and Jesus answered Nicodemus, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus said to him how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born? And Jesus answers him dude, what in the world are you talking about. That's the nastiest thing I've ever heard of. That's not what he says at all, but that's what I'm thinking. You see, nicodemus is so caught up in a works-based righteousness. What must I do to inherit eternal life? Is the vibe that is coming along with Nicodemus. Jesus starts it out with bro, you got to be born again. And the first thing that Nicodemus begins to say is okay, well, what must I do to do that? Do I have to enter my mother's womb a second time? And Jesus is like that's gross man, stop. So Jesus answered.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that. I said to you. You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the spirit. And Nicodemus said to him how can these things be? And Jesus answered him are you the teacher of Israel? And yet you do not understand these things. Truly, truly, I say to you we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the son of man.

Speaker 2: 2:54

Fundamentally, what Nicodemus is missing here is Nicodemus thinks that we have to obey in order to be accepted. And Jesus is saying that is not how salvation works. He says no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven. In other words, the one commonality every worldview has is that something has gone wrong. There's something wrong with the human condition. But every other world religion and every other worldview says so. It is up to us to make ourselves right in order to be accepted by God, whether that's align your chakra or visit Mecca or obey the five pillars or just take enough laps around reincarnation and one day you can go from grasshopper to nirvana.

Speaker 2: 3:40

But what is unique about the gospel is Jesus says I didn't wait up in heaven in order for you to get things right, for you to come to me, but I have descended from heaven to come and do for you what you cannot do for yourself, and so what you need to do is be born again. Well, let me ask you a question for any of you that are fathers. When your child was born I don't know if you were in the room I was in the room. It was pretty traumatic for me, but there was somebody working in that room, and it was not my kids. It was my wife doing the work to birth my child.

Speaker 2: 4:13

And what Jesus is saying essentially is this is that salvation must be received. It cannot be achieved Like being born. You did not decide to be born, but your mom and daddy, out of an overflow of love for each other, created you. And, in a similar way, god created you out of an overflow of love for himself, and that's why we're here, and the reason that we are saved is not because we first loved God, but God first loved us and sent his son as the propitiation for our sin, the payment that satisfies.

Speaker 2: 4:42

And so salvation is not something we achieve. Salvation is something that we receive, that Jesus came down from heaven to get us. We don't work our way up to him. This is salvation for all who believe that we receive the right to be called children of God, and this is very, very, very hard for religious people to understand because we don't believe that it's by grace that we're saved. I mean, I know that's what the Bible says and that's what is actually true, but deep down in our soul there's a lot of people you've been around church a long time and you think, like Nicodemus, I have to do something to be saved. That is not the gospel. That. This is the gospel, not that we first loved God, but God first loved us and he did for us what we could not do for ourselves. He died in our place and has invited us to receive that salvation by faith. Amen.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.