Staying in Rhythm, Part Six: Your Brand New Birthday
There are a lot of misconceptions about Christianity.
Many people have incomplete and distorted understandings of what Christianity is. Sometimes when I tell people that I am a Christian, they respond by saying something like, “Oh, you’re religious,” as if religion were my hobby. Some people like football, others like going to concerts. Eddie likes going to church. Well, I do like going to church, but not because it is my hobby. I have hobbies. I like baseball. I love music. I enjoy cooking and traveling. But honestly, I think that religion would make a dreadful hobby.
Other people think that Christians are not very interested in this world, and some Christians act as if they are not interested in this world. But most of the Christians I have known enjoy being alive and living on earth. And while we have the hope of heaven, being a Christian is not about biding our time until we can get out of here and go live in the clouds. That would make Christianity completely irrelevant in the here and now.
Christianity is also not a fan club for an old, dead, Jewish carpenter or a historical society for preserving his memory and legacy. Churches are not museums built to preserve some past golden age lost to the pages of history, though some treat church buildings this way.
So, what is Christianity? Before I answer that, I need to make a disclaimer. If you thought that Christianity is any of the things I just mentioned, you are going to be really surprised by what I tell you it is. In fact, you may think that I have lost my mind. One of the first spokesmen for Christianity got this response from some of the people he spoke to. His name was Paul, and here is part of what he had to say:
“Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience. We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart. If we are ‘out of our mind’ as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ’s love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”
– 2 Corinthians 5:11-17
Christianity is about becoming a new human being. It is living in the presence of the living God. It is about knowing the Lord Jesus and relying on the Holy Spirit, as we seek to follow and imitate Jesus. To say it another way, those of us who are Christians have been given a brand new birthday. Here is how the Gospel of John talks about it.
“Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.’
Jesus replied, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.’
‘How can someone be born when they are old?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!’
Jesus answered, ‘Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, “You must be born again.” The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.’
‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked.
‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ‘and do you not understand these things? I truly tell you that we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still, you do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things, and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.’
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.”
– John 3:1-16
Jesus speaks of second birth. Rather than getting us into heaven, he is talking about getting heaven into us. To get a handle on what Jesus is talking about, I want to compare our first and second birth.
First, like our first birth, we cannot make our second birth happen. It is not something we can do for ourselves. It is a gift that must be given to us. The Holy Spirit gives new life to people. As we have said before, the Holy Spirit is a person and not an impersonal force we can control or manipulate. If we desire to be born again, we must abandon all thought of its being something we can make happen, as if spiritual life were simply another self-help project.
Second, before our birth, our mother’s womb was our entire world. It was a perfect fit for quite a while, and it provided all that we needed. The unborn baby cannot imagine just how big the world is beyond the womb. It cannot imagine the sights and the sounds. The child does not realize how much more there is to touch and smell. It cannot conceive of all that there is to explore and to learn.
Likewise, it is for the person who has not been born anew. All the talk of God seems so abstract and unreal. Before one steps into the world of the Spirit, one thinks that Christianity is only some kind of philosophy or set of rules. One cannot imagine that God is a present reality and that when we speak of God’s kingdom, we are not just talking about something in the future or something that awaits us in the afterlife.
The person who has not been born again does not realize how much bigger the world really is – that not everything real can be measured and weighed with laboratory instruments. One does not know how much more there is to be experienced. Jesus said, “I have come to give you abundant life.” – John 10:10.
Third, something significant happens when a newborn baby takes his first breath. It is almost as if the child wakes from a deep dream. There is a new level of awareness. There is a new level of life. Likewise, a person changes in profound ways when one breathes in the Holy Spirit. That is why Paul says, “Awake, you sleeper. Rise from the grave, and the Messiah will shine his light upon you.” – Ephesians 5:14.
So profound is the difference that the newborn Christian may feel as if waking from a deep sleep. The newborn Christian enters into a new level of life. It is like getting a brand new birthday. It is like becoming a new person.
Staying with our analogy of dancing, I have already stated that at one time, I was a fairly good dancer. But there were many ways of dancing that I never mastered. For example, I could never copy Michael Jackson’s style of dancing. That was always beyond my skill level. There was also a dance move called the windmill.
I was a teenager during the early 1980s. Breakdancing was all the rage. My friends and I would spend Saturday nights at the skating rink. The skating rink had food and music. They had all the classic arcade games. And, they had a corner set up in the back for breakdancing. I loved showing off my moves. But I could never quite master the windmill. It required a level of athleticism that I never possessed.
I am telling you all of this because too many people are frustrated in their faith journey. The frustration comes because they think that the Christian message is a do-it-yourself kit. They think of The Ten Commandments and Jesus’ Sermon on The Mount as a self-help book. And, for years, they tough it out, trying to manage sin and trying to make themselves into something new. But that’s not how it works. #Tencommandments #bornagain
God never intended for us to do this alone. He never asked us to transform ourselves. He never asked us to rely on our strength and personal resources. The Christian life is meant to be a supernatural journey. The Holy Spirit empowers and equips us for this life.
Now, I want to clarify. The Holy Spirit has no interest in taking over your life, making you into some kind of meat puppet. In Eastern philosophy, such as Hinduism and some variations of Buddhism, the goal is to lose our individual identity as we become enfolded into the great universal spirit. The idea is that of one drop of water falling back into the ocean and ceasing to be a drop. None of the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Islam, or Christianity, teach that.
For Abrahamic faiths, the goal is union with God, not absorption into God, where we lose our sense of self. What’s the difference? I think I can use one Biblical story to illustrate.
In Mark 9, Matthew 17, and Luke 9, we read the stories of Jesus’ transfiguration. At the top of a mountain, God reveals the glory of Jesus to Peter, James, and John. At the beginning of the experience, two long-dead patriarchs appear with Jesus: Moses and Elijah. Neither has been absorbed into God. Each continues to have a personal identity. And, somehow, Peter, James, and John were able to identify each of these ancient men.
The Apostle Peter says it this way: “Through God’s divine power, he has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who has called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, he has given us his very great and precious promises so that through them, you and I may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption found in this world caused by evil.” – 2 Peter 1:3-4.
The idea is that we participate in the divine life. We share in the fellowship of the Trinity. We do not become God, but we do share in God’s life. New birth allows us to live the supernatural life. Here is how Jesus said it:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I also pray for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one; I in them and you in me; so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” – John 17:20-23
Imagine if somehow one of the great dancers of the past, such as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, or Michael Jackson, could step into your shoes and guide your dancing. It would not be like possession or mind control, where your own individual person is engulfed and snuffed out. Instead, imagine it like having an internal dance instructor. That is what happens when the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us.
We do not become mindless robots or puppets. Instead, the Divine dance instructor steps into our shoes and leads us into the Divine dance. We, like the perfect dance partner, learn to follow the lead, adding in our own originality and flair as we learn to keep in rhythm with God.