John K. Jenkins Sr - Romans Road to Salvation

Father, we thank You for the privilege and the opportunity to come before You. I am so grateful for every person present. I pray that You take these next few moments and speak to us. Lord, allow Your truth to prevail, Your name to be exalted, and for You to get all of the glory and all of the honor. In the precious and mighty name of the Lord Jesus, I pray for the unsaved, backslidden, and unsure, unchurched persons that they might hear Your truth and let Your name receive all of the glory and honor. In Jesus ' name, Amen. Amen.

All right, you can be seated. I was on a plane; I was on a trip recently, and when I got on the plane, the moment I walked in, one of the stewardesses jumped up, gave me a hug, and said, «Pastor Jens.» She 's a member, and she began to reel off to me those six doctrinal truths that I have been teaching for the past several weeks. So, it made me feel as though someone is listening, and I am appreciative of that and thankful. Then, somebody said to me last week, «Now that you’ve gone through those six elementary principles, Pastor, what’s next?» I’m glad you asked the question because I want to begin today by telling you what’s next. I want you to open your Bibles to John chapter 3, and this is the next part I want to talk about. I want to talk about John chapter 3, and I will give you the title of this message in a few minutes. I’m not going to give it to you right now, but I will give it to you in a few minutes. I want to walk through this very familiar and significant passage of Scripture. If you don’t ever hear me talk, I want you to listen to me today. Look at the person sitting next to you; if they are asleep, wake them up! Slap them upside their head. I anoint you with the gift and the calling to wake some person up out of their sleeping stupor. Yeah, smack them upside the head and say, «The Pastor told me to smack you,» because this is a very, very important message I am going to give you today. It’s very important. This is what’s next: chapter three of the Gospel of John. The Gospel according to John. Give me a few moments to walk through the first several verses, and then I’m going to go to another passage of Scripture.

Here 's what it says: there was a man, verse one. There was a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. He is one of the religious leaders of his day named Nicodemus. Verse two: this man came to Jesus by night. He came to Jesus by night because he was afraid to go in the day. He didn’t want anybody to know, so he sneaked up on Jesus and said to Him, «Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.» Now, let me put this into today’s vernacular. Here 's what Nicodemus sneaks to Jesus and says: «Rab, you can only do the stuff you’re doing if God is with you. We’ve seen You do miracles; we’ve seen You do the spectacular, and you can only do those things if God is with you.» That 's what he says to Him, and that’s very true, very powerful, very profound.

Verse three: but here’s how Jesus answers his statement. Jesus answered and said to him-and actually, Nicodemus didn’t ask a question; he made a statement-but Jesus responded to him. It says in verse three, «Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.» Stick a pin right there; He says unless a person has had a born-again experience, he can’t even see the kingdom of God. He can’t comprehend the kingdom of God. He can’t understand the kingdom of God. That 's a very important thing because a lot of people don’t understand what this born-again thing is. It’s a very important deal, and it’s really the question that I have to ask you today. You want to know what’s next? I want to ask you a question: have you done what Jesus says? Have you been born again? Have you had a born-again experience? A lot of people join church, but they never got born again. Right?

When I grew up, I joined church. I joined church because I was a Sunbeam. I was a little Sunbeam singing in the choir as a kid, and I saw my peers taking communion-kids in the choir, Sunbeam choir, Children’s Choir right here at First Baptist Church Glenarden-taking communion in every communion service. I looked over at my mother to see if I could take communion, and my mother said, «Not until you join the church.» I was a little frustrated about it because I saw my peers drinking the communion, sticking their tongues all down in the glass, and I wanted to find out what communion tasted like. So one Sunday, I joined the church. I didn’t get saved; I didn’t get born again; I simply joined the church to check out the communion. But Jesus says you cannot see the kingdom of God unless you have had a born-again experience. That born-again experience means that you are regenerated. Somebody said «regeneration.» That 's what we call it. When you get regenerated, your life changes, your perspective changes, your passions change, your heart changes, your view of the world changes .