Nik Godshall - What Just Happened?

The fact that you're watching this means you're to be congratulated and welcomed. You've been adopted into the family of God. And that experience of being adopted by God, getting saved, coming to Jesus, however you heard it put to you, feels different for everyone. But in every instance, it's nothing short of miraculous. And you need to understand the nature of the miracle that just happened in you. And that's going to be the focus of these videos and of the discussions you'll have as you watch them. Whether you truly feel the weight of it or not, you were brought to the start of an incredible journey with the prayer you offered to God for salvation. And that's why the investment you're making in this new journey by being part of this Connect group is so critical. Our goal is to help you get grounded and then stand firm in the new identity that you've received from Jesus. Because that's really what it boils down to. You're a new person. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5.17 that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone. A new life has begun. And that new life is the focus of this video. We want to walk you through what happened when you received Jesus and prepare you for the next steps that lie ahead on this new journey. Now you heard me mention some of the different ways we describe salvation. Getting saved. Coming to Jesus. All of these phrases are helpful ways people try to describe the beauty of what happens when a person is brought into God's family. But the phrase we want to give our attention to right now is one that was given to us by Jesus himself.

Being born again. Now the reason that phrase is so important is because it really captures the essence of what just happened to you, which is what needs to happen in the hearts of all people. Apart from Jesus, you and I are so unlike God that we need to be remade. We need to be born again into another kind of person. We're sinful people. And because of that, we deserve God's judgment. But because he's a gracious and merciful God, because he loves us, he made a way for us to be delivered from his righteous judgment. Because of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, people can go from being God's enemies to being his adopted children. But before we unpack the glory of that transition, we need to make sure we understand a few things that come before it. Now a lot of people believe that people are basically good. And it makes sense, right? The average person has no delight in harming others. All of us want to be loved and even want to give love. So evil people must be the exception, not the norm. Right? Well, if the Bible has its proper place in our lives as the final authority on truth, then no, that's not right. The idea that people are basically good is a glaring contradiction of the Bible's message. The Bible says we are dead in our sins, powerless to save ourselves, so much so that we can't even become aware of our need for God without the Holy Spirit graciously coming to us and drawing our hearts in that direction. But this is also what makes the salvation message found in the Bible so beautiful. The God at the center of that message so loved rebellious sinners that he took the first step to save them from the punishment they didn't know they deserved. And we are those rebellious sinners. You see, God created humanity to be a reflection of his glory and his beauty.

Of all the creatures on earth, only humans were made in the image of God. We were endowed with a unique capacity to relate with him, to represent him, to know him intimately. But we marred that image with our sin, and as a result, that capacity to know God was rendered dead, and the only way it can come back is if it's resurrected by Jesus. But not all beauty in humanity is lost. The Bible says that we're still fearfully and wonderfully made, and so all people, regardless of sex, ethnicity, economic background, or religion, have intrinsic value and deserve to be dignified by others. All people are worth loving and fighting for, from the womb to the tomb. But the Bible calls us to have a firm grasp on both the beauty and the brokenness of humanity. The beauty is where we still bear the image of God and reflect his glory. The brokenness is where we deviate from what he intended humanity to look like. Our initial departure from what God intended is known as the fall. And when Christians speak of the fall of man, they're referring to an event recorded in Genesis chapter 3. God had just finished creating the cosmos, he planted a garden for himself in the land of Eden, and then he crowns the whole creation week with the formation of Adam and Eve. They're unlike anything else he's made so far. The birds, fish, land animals, and insects were simply called into existence. But humans? Listen to what the Bible says about the creation of Adam. It says, Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man's nostrils, and the man became a living person. Adam wasn't just called into existence like the animals were. He was fashioned from the soil and breathed into by God himself. He was set above the entire created order, even in the way he was made. Then, because no other creature could serve as Adam's equal, because he was inherently superior to all the animals, God handcrafted a companion for him.

He took one of Adam's ribs and made Eve. She wasn't made from a separate lump of dust, no. She was made from Adam, from the same material as him. She was part of him. To devalue her would be to denigrate himself. To oppress her would be to abuse himself. Why? Because though she was made to be different from him and was made to help him, she received a share in all that belonged to him. By making Eve from Adam's rib, God showed that she naturally inherited all of Adam's rights and privileges as God's image-bearer. Her assigned role didn't detract from her value. And God looked on this perfect pair that he handmade for his glory and put his whole garden at their disposal. And he gave them one rule. Let him determine right from wrong. Moral authority was to belong exclusively to God. And Adam and Eve's obedience to that rule would be an expression of love, trust, and loyalty toward him. But their obedience didn't last long. Satan, the first hater of God, entered the garden and deceived Eve. Despite all the goodness and all the love that God had shown her and Adam, Satan was able to convince Eve that God could not be trusted and that there would be no consequences for disobeying him. Adam went along with the whole thing and together he and Eve fell into sin. And the whole human race fell with them. Our first parents caused a spiritual change in themselves when they rejected God's love and authority. Being human would no longer mean being connected to God. It would mean being cut off from him.

Romans chapter 5 verse 12 says, when Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone for everyone sinned. Before Genesis 3, it could be said that people were basically good. But ever since that day, it's just not the case. Our default is selfishness and rebellion. We don't naturally want to yield to God's moral authority. We want to hold that for ourselves and craft definitions of good and evil that make us comfortable. And that's why we're deserving of God's righteous judgment, not just because we're disobedient, but because we think we're better than him. If you think you can craft a better definition of good than God has, you think you're better than him. So what's God's response to all this rebellion? Salvation. In his mercy and his goodness, God made a way for the guilty and undeserving to be saved from their due eternal consequences. That's why it's called grace, unmerited favor. Because of our sinful condition, we deserve eternal separation from God. But because Jesus came and suffered our punishment in our place, we can be released from that consequence. That's why the Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. The only thing you and I could ever earn for ourselves is death. There is nothing we can do to earn God's forgiveness or salvation. We are saved by his grace. Jesus died for us when no one asked him to. God took the initiative to save us when we weren't even looking for him. Ephesians chapter 2 says, God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. By simply responding to God's offer of salvation, and faith, you are released from an eternity of separation from God. And this is where being born again comes in. Remember, these are Jesus' words to describe what salvation is like. When Jesus saves us, he doesn't just call us into a new religion or a new way of doing things. No, he brings us into a new life. We are reborn into an entirely new kind of existence that only God could make possible. When Jesus was asked to explain what he meant by being born again, he said that it's to be born of water and of spirit. His language sounds a bit mysterious, but he was actually referencing an Old Testament promise made hundreds of years earlier through the prophet Ezekiel. God promised a day when he would wash his people's sins away with water and that he would put his own spirit within them to empower them to obey his commands. So what's Jesus saying? He's saying that he came to fulfill that ancient promise. Being born again boils down to two things. Being washed, forgiven of your sins, and being empowered by God's spirit to live a life that honors him. So if you find that your friends and family start asking, what's happened to you in the coming days? Just tell them, I've been forgiven and empowered by Jesus. One of the greatest evidences that we've received God's forgiveness and have been born again is that our lives start looking like the Garden of Eden again. God's moral authority is restored and his definitions of right and wrong are what shape the way we look at the world and engage life. That doesn't mean we're perfect, not at all. As long as we're in this life, we're going to have consistent and sometimes persistent wrestling matches with temptation and sin.

But that's when we need to remember that we're saved by grace, not by performance. First John chapter 2 verse 1 says, My dear children, I'm writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. I love that verse because it beautifully captures both our Christian responsibility and our Christian security. John is writing because he doesn't want his readers to sin. He wants them to defeat sin and temptation and learn to walk free from their control. But he also knows human nature. We're weak. Sometimes we succumb to the pressure to do wrong. In those moments, he says, Jesus is our advocate. In other words, our sin no longer has the power to make God our enemy. We were his enemies once, but when we were born again, he made us his adopted children. All the judgment and indignation God had against our sin was poured out on Jesus on the cross. He took it all for us. So now, heaven's response to our sin is no longer judgment but advocacy. Some Christians get nervous when they hear talk like that because they fear it will lead to people taking advantage of God's grace. And that's understandable. After all, the Apostle Paul, one of the most prominent leaders of the early church, also felt that was a concern. In Romans 6, he writes, well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Notice how strong his language is there. He says we have died to sin. If being born again means coming alive in a relationship with God, then it also means

dying to our relationship with sin. Because we're new creations in Christ with new desires and new motivations, we should be continually losing our capacity to enjoy sin. If God's moral authority has truly been restored in our lives, then there will be a natural desire to obey him and to learn what he, the creator, requires of us, his creatures. Over the years, we've seen so much of what God calls good redefined as evil and what he calls evil redefined as good. And we may yet see more. In every corner of the world, we are likely going to see countries and communities persistently distance themselves from God's moral authority. And so our responsibility as Christians is to ask, what part of God's rule is my community resisting? And how do I respond? Am I expressing love and loyalty to the God who saved me with my obedience? Or am I allowing my heart to redefine things in some way? The more time we take to carefully... answer these questions, the more opportunity we give God to use our lives. Your obedience to God's word can create opportunity for other people to find Jesus. Why? Because living under God's moral authority is an expression of the original beauty he always intended humanity to bear. Right now, humanity bears both overwhelming beauty and tragic brokenness. But Jesus, the perfect human, made a way for us to be delivered from the ugly brokenness of sin. And those of us who have been rescued by him have, in a sense, become another kind of human. We're not perfect, but we are forgiven. And now, out of loving loyalty to the God who saved us, we pray what David the king prayed in Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts.

Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. At the beginning of this video, we mentioned some of the phrases we use to describe salvation. A popular one that I didn't mention is saying you gave your life to Jesus. The emphasis there is on the fact that a decision or commitment has been made on our part to repent of our sins and follow the Lord. But if you really think about it, there's a much more important emphasis. It's not so much that we give our lives to Jesus. He gives his life to us. He gave his life for us 2,000 years ago, and now he gives it to us when we come to him for salvation. You were once God's enemy, but Jesus made you God's child. You once had no power to follow God, but Jesus has given you a new powerful life, his life. And our prayer for you is that you grow in the knowledge of Jesus' life inside of you and that you live in his power every day as you grow in the faith.