(Why We Must Be Born Again - Part 1 | Part 2)
In the first half of this study, we looked at the difference between the birth of the flesh and the birth of the spirit. In this part we will explore God's solution for the spiritual birth.
The Scripture: John 4:4-42
"Now [Jesus] had to go through Samaria. So he came to town in Samaria called Sychar....Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?’
The Samaritan woman said to Him, 'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?' (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked Him and He would have given you living water....Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'
The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.'
He told her, `Go, call your husband and come back.’
‘I have no husband,’ she replied.
Jesus said to her, 'You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true.’
'Sir,’ the woman said, 'I can see that you are a prophet.’
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman sent back to the town and said to the people, 'Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?’
They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman's testimony, 'He told me everything I ever did.’
So when the Samaritans came to Him, they urged Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days. And because of His words many more became believers.
They said to the woman, 'We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
Jesus stopped in Samaria and struck up a conversation with a Samaritan woman--an unusual practice. Jews did not associate with Samaritans, and particularly Jewish men did not associate with women.
1. What did Jesus ask her for?
2. What did He call the water He had to offer?
3. What were some of the characteristics of living water?
Jesus, of course, was speaking of the rebirth He alone had to offer. The woman was so impressed with Jesus that she went to get some of her townspeople.
4. What did she ask the townspeople?
5. What was the result of this encounter?
Many became believers. In other words, they were born again.
Let us look further to see what being born again gives us.
The Scripture: John 3:16
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life."
6. What do we receive when we believe in Jesus?
The Scripture: Colossians 1:13-14
"For He (God) has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
7. What else do we receive?
But that is not all.
The Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3
"[God] has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you."
8. What else has God given us?
The Scripture: 1 Peter 1:23
"You have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God."
9. Describe the seed through which we have been born again.
Why is so important that we be born again spiritually?
The Scripture: John 4:23-24
"A time is coming...when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
10. What kind of worshipers does the Father seek?
In the beginning Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. After the Fall Adam's descendants were born in the image of Adam. Now we must be born again--recreated in Jesus' image so we can worship God in spirit. The process by which we are changed from being the victims of our carnal nature and transformed into people eager to please the Lord is called the renewing of our minds. The renewing of our minds is a lifelong process in which both God and man have a part to play.
God's Part
To start us in the participation of this process, God gives us an unbelievable gift.
The Scripture: 1 Corinthians 2:16
"We have the mind of Christ."
11. What do we have?
What an incredible idea! We are no longer at the mercy of our own minds. Christ's mind. His thoughts, and His desires, are available to us. As we grow in the Lord more and more we can think His thoughts and know and understand His purposes and His will for our lives.
The Scripture: 2 Corinthians 3:18
"We...are being transformed into his (Christ's) likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit."
12. What are we being transformed into?
The Scripture: 2 Peter 1:3-4
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these He has given us His very great promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world caused by evil desires."
13. What has God's divine power given us?
14. How have we received this?
15. What does this knowledge give us?
16. What causes the corruption of the world?
17. What do God's promises enable us to do?
What an exciting passage. It tells us that through our relationship to and our knowledge of Jesus; we can participate in the divine nature and escape the world's evils. We have been looking at God's part in our renewing process. Now we need to look at ours. What does God want us to do?
Our Part
The Scripture: Romans 12:12
"I urge you, brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing or your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will."
18. What is our part in this transformation?
19. What will it enable us to do?
Paul has more to teach us in the book of Ephesians.
The Scripture: Ephesians 4:22-24
"Put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of our minds; put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."
20. What does this verse tell us to do?
21. How is the new self described?
Note: For a fuller understanding of this renewal, see the Aglow Bible study, "Renewing Our Minds."
It all begins with being born again. Perhaps you have never had the new birth. If that is true, here is a very simple prayer you can pray to receive it.
Dear Lord,
I am sorry for all my sins and I cannot save myself. I believe you are the Son of God, and that when you died on the cross, you died for those sins. I believe, too, that God raised you from the dead, and that you are in heaven with him today. Thank you for saving me.
Amen.
The Answers
- A drink of water
- Living water
- Whoever drank it would never thirst again. This water would lead to eternal life.
- "Could He be the Christ--the long-awaited Messiah”
- . Many Samaritans became believers.
- Eternal life
- We are rescued from the dominion of darkness and brought into the kingdom of God; we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins.
- New birth into a living hope, into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade
- Imperishable
- Those who will worship Him in spirit and truth
- The mind of Christ
- Christ's likeness
- Everything we need for life and godliness
- Through our knowledge of Jesus
- God's very great promises
- Evil desires
- Participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world
- To offer our bodies as living sacrifices, not to conform any longer to the pattern of this world, to be transformed by the renewing of our mind
- To test and approve what God's good, pleasing and perfect will is
- Put off our old self and put on the new self
- As created to be like God
All scripture quotations in this publication are from the Holy Bible, New International version
(unless otherwise indicated)
Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, New International Bible Society
© 2006 by JoAnne Sekowsky